Angel Carbonu, President of the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), is questioning the sudden interest of the Majority in introducing legislation on the Free SHS program. He doesn’t see the relevance of pursuing this course of action when nobody has challenged the government on the legality of the program.
“I have not heard anybody, civil society, media, unions, political organisation, I have not heard anybody condemning the Free Senior High School and I have also not heard anybody boldly come to say that the Free Senior High School should be abolished. What I have heard people say is to critic the programme’s functionality as it is now and question whether resources are adequately and timeously being sent to the institutions for effective teaching and learning to take place,” Mr Carbonu explained.
Speaking on Top Story, Mr. Cabonu insisted that the government has bigger fish to fry, such as ensuring that the policy is more effective.
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Gov’t to present free SHS Bill to Parliament – Afenyo-Markin
“What is needed is to identify the challenges in the implementation of the Free Senior High School programme… One major challenge is the scale in terms of resource allocation tilting heavily in favor of feeding, against the provision of physical infrastructure, and also teaching and learning materials, creating a congenial environment for teaching and learning to take place. And if we continue like this, we are pushing money to feed children in school and we are compromising the provision of what is necessary for the purpose for which the child is in school; that is teaching and learning,” he said on Tuesday.
He believes this will rather create unnecessary chaos among the legislators around the program.
“For us to be told right now that at right now that is going to Parliament to see whether the opposition parliament is going to raise an objection to create a political cacophony once again on a very important issue, begs the salient issues that are being raised on this basis.”
The legislation will make the implementation of the free SHS policy binding on successive governments if passed.
The Majority Leader, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, announced at a press briefing ahead of Parliament’s resumption from break on Tuesday, June 11, 2024. He indicated that a finalised bill is ready for presentation by the Education Minister, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum.
According to him, the move is to prevent any government from attempting to abort the policy. The Majority Leader insisted that “If we consider it [Free SHS bill] as a House, what that means is that it becomes mandatory for governments to implement this.”
“Unless it is repealed, no government would have the right to say, I am not going to enforce Free SHS because now it is law, so if you fail, a citizen can apply to the court as his bona fide and the court can exact justice in that citizen’s favour,” he said.
By: Kenneth Awotwe Darko
