Former First Lady, Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings, has said no one should condemn the notion of free senior high school (SHS) education and adding that free SHS it is achievable.
“People should stop talking against the free SHS and rather look at the education programme enshrined in our constitution.
“It is a right and has to be done; every political party has to do it. It is obligatory,” he said.
She said quality had nothing to do with only SHS but that quality must run through the whole educational system, from pre-school to tertiary.
Nana Konadu was speaking to the Daily Graphic in an exclusive interview in which she announced that she was no longer going to battle the EC to endorse her as her party’s presidential candidate as procedures in the electoral processes were far gone, but said she was rather channeling her energy into ensuring that most of her party’s parliamentary candidates were elected into Parliament.
She said she did not understand why people would doubt if ,someone was promising free senior high school education, saying it was possible as at present SHS education was highly subsidised by the government, making it almost free in the country.
She explained that things causing hikes in school fees at the senior high school level were Parent Teacher Association (PTA) levies, sports levies and other levies instituted by the schools themselves.
Free SHS she said, was a constitutional right and therefore was possible.
However, she said there was the need to do more to improve on the educational system of the country, saying that “for me it is not the free but how do we get the children to actually go to school and stay in school and make something for themselves”.
She said that education could be free but people would still not go to school.
Citing the three northern regions where education was free but children still did not stay in school, she said more needed to be done on the educational system of the country.
Source: Daily Graphic
