Review Free SHS, is too expensive – Joe Jackson

A Financial Analyst and the Chief Operating Officer of Dalex Finance, Mr Joe Jackson has said top most on his list of government programmes that he is expecting a review is the Free Senior High School Policy.

According to him, all though the policy has helped many Ghanaian homes as far as education is concerned, it is also very expensive and needs to be looked at again.

“A review of free SHS. That the single policy that has help, that is so expensive that we believe it should be reviewed,” he said when asked what his expectations were ahead of government’s announcement of policies to mitigate the current financial crises in the country.

Mr Joe Jackson was speaking on TV3 News @10 on Tuesday, March 22 monitored by GhanaPlus.com.

Free Senior High School

The Free SHS programme, a flagship programme by the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo was introduced in the year 2017 to create equal opportunity for Ghanaian children to acquire secondary education, financial background regardless.

Launching the programme, he said “because I know that knowledge and talent are not for the rich and privileged alone, and that free education widens the gates of opportunities to every child, especially those whose talents are arrested because of poverty,” hence the introduction of the policy.

Under the policy, expenses of all students in government Senior High Schools across the 16 Regions of the country including food, accommodation, examination fees, electricity bills and host of others are paid by the government.

As at October 2021, some 1.6million students have benefited from the programme and still counting with some estimated ₵5billion spent so far on its implementation.

However, there have been several concerns raised about the policy with many calling for a review to exclude children from wealthy families.

They are of the view parents who can afford should be allow to pay while government  cater for children whose parents are not in the position to do so

Source: GhanaPlus.com