Free SHS: NPP struggling to find meaning of ‘review’ – Asiedu Nketia

The General Secretary of the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) is mocking the decision of the government to review the ongoing Free Senior High School (Free SHS) programme as a result of the economic crunch.

According to Mr. Johnson Asiedu Nketia, when the NDC led by former president John Dramani Mahama in 2020 called for a review of the policy to sustain it, president Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and his cohorts in the New Patriotic Party misinterpreted that to mean the NDC wanted Free SHS collapsed.

He said “today the NPP has announced a review for the policy” while questioning what dictionary the NPP will be looking into for the meaning of the word “review”.

He laughed at the fact that the NPP has today come to understand that the word “review” does not mean collapse.

Speaking in an interview with Kwame Obeng Sarkodie on the Ghana Yensom morning show on Accra 100.5 FM, Tuesday, March 22, 2022, the NDC scribe said: “From the beginning when the policy was introduced, we saw it coming and knew sustainability will be a challenge.”

He argued that the Free SHS programme per the NPP’s plan of implementation set out to treat the haves and have nots as the same which in his view “cannot be possible”.

This form of implementation, he explained, was not sustainable for the policy. He said the NDC believes in each according to his or her needs.

He quizzed how a student who went to Morning Star, Ghana International School among others, and paid fees equal to that of a university, should be made to benefit from free tuition at the secondary school level.

“It does not make economic sense and that is the reason the policy is having challenges,” he averred.

“The problem with the policy was the mass admission to all students which led to the double-track system,” he added.

He reminded the government that the major issue with the Free SHS policy is funding and nothing else adding that the NDC if voted into power will find the funds and review the policy to sustain it.