The Minister for Works & Housing, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah says John Mahama’s intention, if elected, is to make access to Free SHS and Free TVET no longer universal and free for all.
He said the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) would collapse the Free Senior High School (Free SHS policy.
The NDC, according to Mr Nkrumah plans to introduce means testing to eligibility to free secondary education in Ghana.
This Mr. Nkrumah warned would be a disaster for the country as it would lead to corruption and discrimination which may require parents having very good “connections” with senior government officials to stand any hope of qualification.
He made the disclosure with reference to an official document authored by former Education Minister, Mrs Betty Mould Iddrisu.
In a ten-minute video clip, the second in the series of 8, he makes the case for young Ghanaians to vote on December 7 and vote for Dr Bawumia. First posted on the Minister’s You Tube page Wednesday, 23 days to the 2024 presidential and parliamentary elections – Oppong Nkrumah, who is also the NPP Member of Parliament for Ofoase-Ayirebi, reminded Ghanaians that the NDC has as far back as 2012 and even before, demonstrated their disdain for Free SHS.
“I want to proof to you today that the NDC does not believe in Free SHS. I want to show you the NDC’s blue print for financing education. It is called the ‘Education Strategic Plan’. It was under the signature of Betty Mould Iddrisu who was Minister of Education at the time. It is online, google it and download it yourself and go to page 29 and I will show you something.
He read Page 29 to make the case that the NDC had never been in touch with the concerns and aspirations of parents struggling to educate their wards to the secondary level.
In fact, the NDC is even proposing that the children of poor Ghanaians must be encouraged to work hard hard labour, like cooking and cleaning, to provide them with the income to fund their secondary education.
“This is the NDC’s real belief. According to the NDC, most of the students who attend public senior high secondary education actually come from private schools and therefore, they are not poor, these are not my words, they are the NDC’s words and they have gone on to say that such children from poor and needy homes “should not receive boarding subsidies.”
He stressed, “They go on further to say that, however, it is important to subsidise those that they classify as needy students especially, those from the Northern and other hard to reach areas. How are they going to do this? They
“Another way they want to do this is by giving loans to needy students and the third way that they want to do is almost laughable, is what they call students self-help schemes, where students will be cooking and cleaning to be able to support their education.
“I am not kidding you; this is in the education strategic plan published in February 2012 by the NDC under the signature of Betty Mould Iddrisu, Educational Minister at the time, google it and read it,” the NPP MP further remarked.
shedding more light on this grand scheme of the NDC, Mr. Nkrumah explained that what the NDC strategic plan means is that “their true belief is people who go to the Free senior high school are not poor and therefore, you should separate what they call the needy and let those that they believe can afford pay and those that they separate and call the needy, they will give them some subsidy for boarding.”
The Minister went on further to point out that “they [the NDC] are going to do this by means testing and that means that they are going to apply a mechanism to say, you, you should pay, but this one should not pay.
“What that will actually end up meaning is that if you don’t have connections to NDC officials, if you don’t have protocol allocations, you are not going to get “Free Senior High School.” That is the true intendment of the NDC policy,” the Works and Housing Minister said.
“The other way they want to do it is by what they call student self-help schemes where a student would have to do some cooking or cleaning to be able to support their education. Not my words, it is in their strategic plan,” he added.
The New Patriotic Party (NPP) according to Mr. Nkrumah, holds a completely different view from that of the NDC when it come to the education of every Ghanaian child and that view is that irrespective of the religious, financial or political persuasion of all children in Ghana, education must be made available to everyone on equal terms.
“NPP’s view is different. NPP says every child who has qualified for senior high school, his or her school fees must be paid in full and for free. Nana Akufo-Addo and Dr Bawumia started Free SHS in 2017 and since then, about 5.7 million Ghanaian Children have benefitted from this programme. Millions of households have been saved from paying an average of about GHc 3,500.00 since 2017.
“The NDC has since 2008, always been against “Free SHS” and now because of the election, they want to remanufacture history so that you will fall for that trick. They even teamed up with some media houses in 2016 and 2017 to publish fake stories about the Free senior high school programme seeking to use it to validate their time held believe against how we are handling it but millions of Ghanaian households have benefitted and will benefit if the NPP stays in power,” Oppong Nkrumah pointed out.
On the future of the Free SHS policy, Mr Nkrumah noted that it is clear from the records of the two major political parties that Mr Mahama cannot be trusted with the future of the senior high school policy but clearly, Dr Bawumia will protect it in its current shape and seek to improve the policy.
“It me be blunt, you cannot trust former president Mahama and the NDC on Free SHS. If you vote for them, this is what it means, in accordance with their programme. They will apply a means test, some will get, some will not get and if we don’t have connections to the NDC or to protocol allocations, I can assure you that you will be one of those who will not get it.
“But you can trust Bawumia and the NPP to protect Free SHS as it is and to improve it. That every Ghanaian child who qualifies for public senior high school should go to school free of charge. We will also deal with the outstanding bottlenecks including infrastructure,” Mr. Nkrumah stated.
“No one is stopped however from attending and paying fees for private senior high education but public schools will continue to be free for all Ghanaians, rich or poor, NPP or NDC, Christian or Muslim. This is the major difference Bawumia and Mahama on the Free SHS programme and the Free TVET programme,” the Ofoase-Ayirebi lawmaker added.