Oxfam International, a group of more than 20 Non-Governmental Organization has jabbed the Akufo Addo government for overly concentrating on providing free Senior High School education and ignoring quality of education students receive from available schools.
This according to the organization will ensure that teaching and learning are effective in all public schools in the country.The Programs and Campaign Manager of Oxfam Ghana, Zakariah Suleman cautioned the Akufo Addo administration against mass production of underprepared students from public schools.
“Government should take steps to ensure that teaching and learning are effective in all public schools and that schools are available to all segments of our population without any barriers; cost barriers, geographical barriers among others,” he told a newsmen on the sidelines during the launch of Oxfam report in Accra titled “Power of Education to Fight Inequality”.“…what we are saying is that even though government has done well by showing commitment through the extension of the basic education to cover free senior high school, there are still thousands of children who enter the classroom and do not learn anything.
There are still hundreds and thousands of students who are not able to get into school because the schools are not available within their vicinity or the schools that are available within their vicinity charge fees that their parents cannot pay, ” Mr. Suleman said.The free SHS policy is the Akufo Addo administration’s top priority policy. However, the government has come under heavy criticism for implementing the policy haphazardly as students admitted into available schools in the country have been faced with overcrowding and ill-resourced instructors who have often threatened industrial actions.
The overcrowding has forced the government to run a shift system of alternating contact hours between students and teachers.Millions have been pumped into the projects in terms of recurrent expenditures such as fees and little have been allocated to expanding school infrastructure for the avalanche of qualified students seeking the opportunity that the free educational policy presents.