‘Nobody is going to scrap free SHS’ – John Mahama

President-elect of Ghana, John Dramani Mahama, has dismissed claims that his incoming administration intends to cancel the free Senior High School (SHS) policy. He affirmed his commitment to improving the programme, describing the cancellation rumours as mere political rhetoric.

His remarks come amidst mixed reactions to former Finance Minister Seth Terkper’s suggestion that the programme should be limited to day students to ease the government’s financial burden. In a recent interview with TV3, Terkper argued for adopting models used in European countries and the US to ensure the programme’s sustainability.

Speaking with VOA’s Paul Ndiho, Mahama stressed the need to enhance the policy by eliminating inefficiencies and securing dedicated funding:

We’re going to maintain the policy. What we’re going to do is get dedicated funding for it so that it is better resourced than it is currently. There’s a lot of waste in the system. We’re going to help to make it more efficient so that the teachers, the parents and the students get the best out of the free SHS.

He also highlighted the need to address challenges at the basic school level, stating:

We’re going to look at the basic school level too, because we are focused on free SHS. We are abandoning the basic level.

So the basic level is becoming a major problem. 1.3 million pupils at a basic level do not have furniture. They don’t have tables and chairs to sit on. They lie on their stomachs in the classroom or sit on cement blocks. And that’s because all our focus has been on the secondary school level.

Mahama also reiterated his intention to hold a national education forum to gather input from stakeholders for policy improvement:

So we’re going to hold a national education forum. And that forum is going to bring all the stakeholders together, and we’re going to take a look at the whole education value chain.

We’re going to come and by consensus, all of us—it’s nonpartisan, everybody of every walk of life who has a stake in education is going to be at that conference—and we’re going to take important decisions on how to reform our education so that the children get better quality.

Introduced in 2017, the Free SHS policy has cost Ghana an estimated GHS 9.9 billion to date.