[ 2017-03-13 ]

Free SHS: UCC VC reacts to minister's 'unprovoked personal attack'
The Pro Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cape
Coast, Prof. George Kwaku Toku Oduro is
counselling the Ministry of Education to be more
receptive to suggestions and criticisms as it
prepares to implement the Free Senior High School
Policy.

According to him, early warning signs and
suggestions from stakeholders of education should
not be taken as a vote against the policy or a
political opposition to the policy but rather
suggestions that will make the implementation of
the policy smoother and better.

Published below is the full statement from the Pro
Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cape Coast.

PRESS RELEASE

THE FREE SHS POLICY IMPLEMENTATION DEBATE: A
REACTION TO THE MINISTER OF EDUCATION’S
UNPROVOKED OPEN PERSONAL VERBAL ATTACK ON ME

Introduction

The government, in demonstrating its value for
secondary education, has declared a policy of FREE
SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL (SHS) education in the country
come September 2017. Ever since His Excellency
Nana Akuffo-Addo, the President of our country
made this declaration, divergent opinions have
been expressed by some Ghanaians, including me.
Common to all the reactions to the announcement is
the acknowledgement that the Free SHS policy is a
laudable initiative and a constitutional mandate
that the government has to fulfill. In this light,
the bold step taken by His Excellency to scale up
implementation of the Free SHS policy is highly
commended. Indeed, no one can deny the access
expansion advantages associated with the removal
of all fees and other related costs in the
provision of senior high school education in
Ghana. Parents would be saved the burden of paying
school fees and no child would be sacked from
school for non-payment of fees. But the questions
that remain unanswered and which have been my
focus of contribution to the debate are:‘how do
we ensure that quality is not compromised in the
wholesale implementation of the Free SHS
policy?‘how do we balance access and quality to
make the Free SHS policy more meaningful to the
Ghanaian child? How do we sensitize stakeholders,
particularly parents against reneging on their
fundamental shared responsibilities? These
questions have been the parameters within which my
contributions to the debate have so far been
made.

My contribution to the Debate

In an interview granted me by Joy News, I drew
attention to some quality challenges facing senior
high schools, particularly those operating in
disadvantaged contexts and urged the Ministry of
Education to prioritize strategies for mitigating
these challenges in the Free SHS implementation
process. Specifically, I suggested that the
Ministry of Education shoulduse not rush in
implementing the policy without:

• sensitizing parents and other stakeholders to
enable them to understand the implications of the
Free SHS policy for their shared responsibilities
to schools

• initiating a process of revamping and
equipping the science laboratories of less endowed
senior high schools and stocking their libraries
with books

• recruiting teachers with requisite expertise
to handle subjects to avoid the situation where
for example, in some less endowed schools, a
biology teacher is made to teach mathematics, a
vernacular teacher made to teach English etc, and

• putting in place strategies to ensure that
remittances to schools are not unnecessarily
delayed.

I concluded by cautioning that the implementation
of the policy should not be rushed through. If the
implementation of the Free SHS is not indexed to
QUALITY then it will be Free SHS for the sake of
Free SHS which could only satisfy a political
agenda.

I did not in any way attack the Minister of
Education. My comments were geared towards helping
the Ministry of Education to strengthen the
implementation of the Free SHS policy to ensure
that quality is not compromised. It was also to
ensure that stakeholders, particularly parents, do
not renege on their shared commitment to
supporting teaching and learning in secondary
schools. These are comments that any Minister of
Education who understands quality issues in
education would find very helpful in terms of
strategizing for an access-quality-balanced
implementation of a Free SHS policy.

It is within this context that I wish to express
surprise at the Minister of Education’s
unjustifiable anger and personal verbal attack on
me while reacting to my comments on JoyNews. I am
particularly concerned about the diction used in
describing me as a hypocrite and a privileged
person.

My Reaction

In the interest of our dear nation and the fact
that quality education cannot and should not be
compromised in any way if we desire the best from
the Free SHS policy, I react to the Minister of
Education’s image damaging remarks as follows:

1. The ‘Hypocritical’ Description

The Minister of Education described my comments as
hypocritical and queried ‘Where was the Provost
when free SHS started some 50 years ago in this
country? Has he ever advised that those parts of
the country enjoying free SHS should be
stopped?’

My Response

My understanding of the word ‘hypocrite’is one
who pretends to be what one is not really is. If
this is the context within which the Minister of
Education describes my comments as
‘hypocritical’ then I say categorically that
he is not being fair to me. I find his use of the
word on me as a personal attack which is very
unfortunate, unfair, impulsive and an attempt to
suppress critical analysis of the Free SHS policy
implementation processes.

Fifty years ago, I was a child so it was just not
possible for me to have advocated stoppage of the
Free SHS in some parts of the country as the
Minister queried. I must also draw the
Minister’s attention to the fact that I have
never advocated that the Free SHS policy should be
stopped. What I have consistently said is that the
Ministry of Education should plan the
implementation of the policy very well by
prioritising quality issues to make the good
intentions behind His Excellency President Nana
Akuffo-Addo’s declaration of the Free SHS policy
more meaningful to Ghanaians.

I also wish to inform the Minister of Education
that ever since I grew up as an adult, experienced
the value of quality education and the need to
strike a balance between access expansion and
quality, I have never relented my efforts in
cautioning governments on issues of quality. It is
therefore not true that this is the first time I
am taking a position on the need to index FREE
Education to Quality. In 2012, I developed a paper
which was published in the Commonwealth Education
Partnerships – a Commonwealth Secretariat
Referenced working document for theCommonwealth
Education Ministers’ Conference titled:
Reflections on the Bright and Dark sides of free
Education in Sub-Saharan Africa. I think it will
be very helpful for the Hon. Minister to take
pains to read that paper to get him informed about
the critical quality issues at stake in the
implementation of Free SHS. I am particular about
the need for the Minister of Education to
appreciate the quality issues involved in Free
Education because that is the only way his
Ministry will succeed in translating the
meritorious Free SHS initiative of His Excellency
Nana Akuffo-Addo into meaningful practice.

2. The ‘Privileged Person’ Description

The Minister described me as a privileged person
who, by implication, does not appreciate the woes
of the poor and ‘want the poor to wallow in
ignorance’. He emphasized‘I find it a bit
hypocritical that some people are enjoying free
SHS… and when the Government is taking a bold
step that everybody should have that financial
barrier removed, a Provost of the Cape Coast
University, a very privileged man says that some
people should wallow in ignorance. …. Sometimes
when people who are privileged are giving advice
they should watch what they say’

My Response

I am very happy and thank the Hon. Minister for
placing me within the bracket of ‘a privileged
person’. I am sure many people who know my
background and listened to the Minister’s
pronouncement would wonder if he really knows the
person he describes as ‘a very privileged
person’.

Within the context of our debate, a privileged
person may refer to a person who enjoyed a very
easy pre-tertiary education life. A person who
might have enjoyed the best secondary education in
the country or outside the country. These are some
of the features of a privileged person. Contrary
to the perspective of the Hon. Minister, I have
never had the privilege of attending a secondary
school education because my parents were poor. In
other words, I do not have a secondary school
mate. I had to study privately on my own to write
both the GCE ‘O’ and ‘A’ level
examinations which later opened avenues for me to
pursue my further studies by installments. From my
background, it can never be the case that I am a
privileged person. I think as a Minister of
Education, his public pronouncements must be based
on facts because he represents the decorum of
knowledge in the country.

One of the reasons I am very passionate about
quality in the implementation of the Free SHS
policy is the fact that one can easily build on
quality foundations laid for him. I had to build
on my Middle school education through self-tuition
because I had quality teachers and had access to
learning materials. Without these inputs, I am not
sure I could have made it to the professorial
level to warrant the Minister describing me as a
privileged person. Based on my experience I wish
to reiterate my caution that unless the Ministry
of Education prioritizes quality issues in the
implementation of the Free SHS programme, the end
result will only satisfy a political agenda.

The Issue about SDG Goal 4

The Minister justified the rushed approach to
implementing the Free SHS policy by referring to
Goal 4 of the Sustainable Development Goals: He
directed, ‘Go and read the Sustainable
Development Goal 4 and what it talks about
secondary rights to education for all
children’.

My Response

I am not sure the Minister understands the pivot
around which SDG 4 evolves. Goal 4 of the
Sustainable Development Goals focuses on Quality
Education. It does not just mandate governments to
provide Free Education but more importantly, it
lays emphasis on ‘Quality Education’. For
purposes of clarity, Target 1 of SDG 4 reads:
‘By 2030, ensure that all girls and boys
complete free equitable and quality primary and
secondary education.

My call for balancing access and quality in the
implementation of the Free SHS policy, therefore,
fits well into the SDG 4 which the Minister of
Education refers to.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I wish to appeal to the Minister of
Education to move beyond politics and instead
adopt an open mind to divergent ideas made by
Ghanaians. He should develop a listening ear and
engage stakeholders to dispassionately plan
strategies for implementing the Free SHS agenda.
He should also avoid making pronouncements for the
sake of pronouncements. He should understand
issues well before coming public.

Thank You

Sgd: Prof. George K.T. Oduro

(Pro Vice-Chancellor, University of Cape Coast)

Source - Myjoyonline.com

... go Back