Free SHS: Akufo-Addo hints at more budgetary allocation to education sector to address access and infrastructure

President Akufo-Addo says government will allocate additional resources to the educational sector to address increasing access and infrastructure as a result of the free senior high school programme.

About 23 per cent of the country’s budget goes into the sector, but the free access has exposed challenges impacting quality.

But addressing the Global Education Summit in London on Thursday, the President said government is fully committed to ensuring every Ghanaians child has access to education.

“We’re spending some 23 per cent of our budget on education. It’s one of the highest on the continent, and we intend to ramp it up even more.”

For President Akufo Addo, introducing and implementing Senior High School (SHS) policy has ensured that hundreds of thousands of young Ghanaians who previously, would have had their education truncated at the Junior High School level now have the opportunity to further their education.

According to him, the introduction and acceptance of the Free SHS policy promoted by his government has expanded access to education dramatically, enabling hundreds of thousands of young men and women to go to Senior High School from all corners of our country.

“The policy has reversed decades of exclusion, which denied, on the average, one hundred thousand young men and women, annually, entry to senior high school education because of the poverty of their parents,” he said

With the free senior high school program now a reality, President Akufo Addo indicated government is looking at replicating it at the tertiary level.

President Akufo-Addo said his government is likely to add free tertiary education as well.

“I don’t want to give a timeline, but I’m sure it’s possible,” he said.

“For now, what has been put in place is a system where students at the tertiary level are provided loans while in school to help them cater for their needs, but we’re considering free Tertiary education too,” he said.

Source: myjoyonline