Ghana has embarked on a free Senior High
School (SHS) education policy with the inauguration of the first Community Day
SHS building in the Central Region.
President John Dramani Mahama inaugurated the Community Day school, named after
the late President John Evans Attah Mills, at a ceremony at Ekumfi Otuam, the
late President’s home town yesterday.
Ghana’s 1992 Republican Constitution stipulates that the country must embrace a
progressively free Senior High School education ten years upon the coming into
being of the Constitution.
However, this is
the first time a government has commenced implementing that constitutional
requirement since 1993.
President Mahama told chiefs and people of Ekumfi Otuam that the
government would ensure that 200 community SHS would be constructed in
under-served rural communities across the country as part of his key electoral
promises he made to the people of Ghana during the 2012 electioneering campaigns.
According to the Forman at the construction
site at Otum in the Ekumfi District John Mensah noted that the project which
started last year August is expected to be completed by July 2015.He said there
are 27 classrooms in the three story school complex. This was revealed when Central
Press reporter visited the site to see progress of work.
President
Mahama in the 2012 NDC manifesto pledged to build 200 Community Day Senior High
schools across the country.
The
purpose of the project is to increase access to Secondary Education in
disadvantaged districts as well as improve quality in low performing Senior
High Schools.
Funding
has been secured for 150 out of the 200 senior high schools, and we remain
committed to fulfilling the promise by close of 2016”, he said.
According
to him, Education is the key to the eradication of poverty, and government is
committed to establishing the 200 Senior High Schools to make education
accessible to all in Ghana.
Earlier, Ghana’s
Minister for Education, Professor Nana Jean Opoku-Agyeman, stated that the free
education policy was starting with day students and for the first term, 320,488
students would be covered. She explained that these were made up of 111,212-
first year, 109,731 second- year and 99,753 third-year students.
