Audio By Carbonatix
The Vice President of the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) is doubtful the progressive free Senior High School (SHS) education policy announced by President John Mahama, will add any value to second cycle education in the country.
If anything, Angel Kabornu believes the policy would rather reduce the quality of education at SHS and turn it into 'syto'- a name associated with poor quality education at the public primary and Junior High School levels.
President John Mahama in his State of the Nation Address to Parliament on Tuesday, revived the controversial free SHS education policy with a promise to progressively implement the policy in 2015.
The policy which was the flagship campaign message of the New patriotic Party (NPP) in the 2008 and 2012 elections, was bastardised by the NDC as a political gimmick to hoodwink the people of Ghana.
Former Minister of Education, Lee Ocran addressed a press conference in which he categorically stated that free education was an impossible task and that if it was possible, Ghana's first President Kwame Nkrumah would have implemented it long ago.
President Mahama, then a candidate in 2012 elections, also argued the country needed to improve on quality and access to education rather than make it free.
He promised that his government, if voted into power, would rather build some 200 Senior High Community Schools in its four year mandate [50 every year] as a way of improving access as well as providing quality teachers and teaching materials like free textbooks, exercise books, etc to improve quality.
Almost a year and a half into his administration, the president John Mahama-led administration has yet to build any of the SHS promised.
In his address to Parliament, Tuesday, the president said he would cut the sod for the first 50 of the SHS schools on March 3, 2014. He also announced the government would begin the implementation of the free SHS policy in 2015- an announcement which has angered members of the opposition NPP.
In a reaction to the free SHS announcement, the Vice President of the NAGRAT Angel Karbornu said his outfit was not even consulted by government before making this announcement.
In his personal opinion, Ghanaians need "quality education and results oriented education" and not free education.
How many of the middle class in our society are ready to send their kids to syto, the free basic school? Karbornu asked.
He said what parents are looking for is better results for their wards and not necessarily to have their wards have a free education.
"I am apprehensive about the free things," he confessed, adding, if care is not taken and the government goes ahead to implement the policy it would turn the SHS into public basic schools across the country, popularly called syto.
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