The Executive Director at Africa Education Watch, Kofi Asare, says government’s flagship programme, Free SHS as it is being implemented now is not financially sustainable.

Speaking on Joy Prime’s Beyond the Headlines, the education advocate stated that the policy needs to be reviewed to ensure its purpose is achieved and sustained.

“It is not sustainable financially. We need to review it along the line for efficiency to make it financially sustainable. If we want to maintain it this way, it will hurt other sectors in the education sector, and it will not achieve the purpose of the free SHS.

“This is because the very raw materials it receives from the basic levels will be affected in terms of quality,” he told host Daniel Dadzie, Monday.

Mr Asare said that although government has periodically reviewed its policy, it has failed to engage all relevant stakeholders, thus, mostly misses out on the critical gaps facing the system.

“There are some significant reviews to the Free SHS policy, but the problem is that these reviews have been done by the very people who are implementing it. We want the review to be participatory, including those who are not in the implementing space so that we come with independent opinions,” he stated.

Meanwhile, the 2020 Running mate of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) flagbearer has condemned what she believes is the government’s defensive attitude towards issues concerning implementing the Free SHS policy.

Prof Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, in an interview on JoyNews’ The Probe Sunday, advised the Akufo-Addo-led government to admit that the education system is riddled with issues, thus, needs help in addressing them.

According to her, the indifference being exhibited by the incumbent government towards the dire issues being raised by the populace will be detrimental to the future generation and Ghana as a whole.

“If the people in charge are saying there are no problems, then we have a huge problem. I don’t know what there is to hide, and if you admit you need help, there is nothing wrong with it. Wisdom never resides in the head of one person,” she told host Emefa Apawu.

However, the Education Minister, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum has assured the citizenry that government is committed to building a robust education sector.

At a press conference on Sunday, Dr Adutwum highlighted six initiatives government plans to introduce to transform the education sector.

Amongst them include; digitalisation of schools, the introduction of a National Standardised Test, investing in school infrastructure, and eradicating the double-track system by 2024.