The Minority in Parliament, members of the National Democratic Party (NDC), is questioning the true intent of the proposed Free Senior High School bill by the New Patriotic Party (NPP).
Word circulating so far indicates that the bill is intended to make into law the policy which would make it illegal for subsequent governments to depart from its implementation.
In June, the Majority Leader of Parliament, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, revealed that Cabinet had received and approved the Free SHS Bill, and that it would be presented to the Legislature through the Minister of Education, Dr. Yaw Adutwum.
However, the minister of Education came out to state earlier this month that the bill was yet to be sent to Cabinet for a debate. This forced the Ranking Member on the Education Committee of Parliament, Dr. Clement Apaak has questioned in a statement.
“If the content of the July 1st, 2024 Daily Graphic front page story, attributed to the Minister for Education, titled “Free SHS Bill Goes to Cabinet: Seeks Cancellation of BECE for SHS Admission – SHS to be 6 Years, is indeed true, then, it raises serious questions with regards to the purpose of the yet-to-be-seen FSHS Bill as originally announced by the Majority Leader, Alexander Afenyo-Markins” Dr. Apaak wrote.
The Member of Parliament for Builsa South went on to state that “ a close scrutiny of the report attributed to the Minister for Education by the Daily Graphic suggests that the purpose of the proposed bill is not to protect the FSHS Programme in its current form and to ensure that successive governments continue to implement the policy in the current manner as suggested by the Majority Leader”.
The Ranking Member believes that the bill is mainly ‘seeking to review, restructure and redefine aspects of the Pre-tertiary educational system rather than protect the FSHS in its current form’ and that ‘we must not and can not discuss the proposed bill any further until we see it and study its contents’.
Dr. Apaak, just like other stakeholders, are suggesting that ‘removing BECE and combining JHS and SHS into a 6 year secondary system, is a major undertaking that should require a serious national stakeholders dialogue.
He added in his statement that the NDC can not stand against a policy it began in 2015; “Our position as a party and a Caucus remains the same. Any bill or legislation intended to address the FSHS policy implementation challenges, and to make the programme sustainable, is welcome. Let us restate that John Dramani Mahama and the NDC believe that the FSHS policy is a good policy and do not hate it as some in the NPP falsely claim. How can we not like a policy we began implementing in 2015?”
The challenges with the implementation of the Free SHS policy has been the biggest concern of the NDC Our concern has been and remains the implementation challenges: inadequate academic and residential infrastructure; inadequate furniture; inadequate and poor quality food; erratic academic calendar; obnoxious double track system among others. And we will continue pointing out these implementation challenges with the hope that they will be fixed” Dr. Clement Apaak added in his statement.
