[ 2017-02-13 ]

Dr. Prince Armah

Gov't free SHS not enough to improve accessibility - Expert
Government's plans to improve accessibility to
senior high school by introducing free education
has been criticised as inadequate.

Executive Director of the Institute for Education
Studies Prince Armah argued that a lot more
students are not getting access to Senior High
School because they fail to pass the Junior High
School exams known as the Basic Education
Certificate Examination (BECE).

If government wants to improve SHS accessibility
then it should remove the need to write BECE as a
requirement to progress to SHS and make basic
education a seamless transition from JHS to SHS,
he suggested.

The NPP government has announced it is absorbing
five fee items on the students' bill in fulfilment
of a 2012 campaign promise re-emphasised in the
2016 general elections.

From September 2017, no parent will pay tuition
fees for boarding students as well as admission
fees, no library fees, science centre fees,
computer lab fees, examination fees and utility
fees.

The cost of the policy is yet to be known. But the
last time government absorbed part of the fees, it
paid GHC12million which was the cost of
implementing the policy for 313,301 day students.

This was under the NDC government and was termed
progressive free education. Despite another
promise to include boarding students in September
2016, the NDC government failed to do so. The NPP
wants a holistic implementation of the policy to
include boarding students.

Speaking on the policy as announced by the
president over the weekend, Dr. Armah believes the
policy is "not likely to target the specific
people that need the support."

He said 50% of students who sit the BECE do not
obtain qualifying grades to go on to SHS. He gave
the breakdown pointing out that in the Northern
region only 22% make it to SHS while in the Upper
East a paltry 11% progress.

Summing up the statistics, the Executive Director
said the top 20 Senior High Schools in Ghana
contribute at least 46% of admissions into the
University.

With more than 500 senior secondary schools in
Ghana, it means more than 400 such schools are
adding some 54% of university students.

This is problematic, according to Dr.Armah. It
shows deprived schools need help to compete better
and to do this government could improve conditions
in such schools and also complete all the senior
high schools started under the previous
administration so people don't have to struggle to
gain admission.

Whilst at that, government can remove the JHS
component so that instead of three-year JHS and
later a three-year SHS, there can be a new
six-year secondary school system uninterrupted by
the need to pass an exam, Dr. Prince Armah
continued.

"We have to scrap BECE so that everyone will have
access to continuous secondary school" he
suggested.

Source - Myjoyonline.com

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