The Prime Minister of Finland visited Ghana and was asked to give the secret of development. Her response was: EDUCATION! EDUCATION!! EDUCATION!! [Literacy rate is 100% in Finland.] That is true because education is the route to knowledge. So without education, knowledge will be lacking. And the good book says: “For lack of knowledge my people perish”. The wisest thing any person or society should seek therefore is knowledge. It is clear that gold, oil, diamond, cocoa, yam, manganese etc are not what bring development otherwise Africa would be the most developed continent in the world. Just as employees are the most important asset of every organisation, the citizenry are the most important assets of the country. I am therefore glad that all the political parties agree that the current situation where majority of the youth drop out after JHS is not ideal. Such individuals are condemned to ignorance for the rest of their lives and it is the country which suffers. The most radical proposed policy on helping to provide accessibility is Nana Akufo-Addo’s free education to SHS level. It is therefore not surprising that the feasibility of its implementation is been questioned by some people and organisations. The policy has been questioned in two ways: (1) whether Ghana can afford and (2) the concern that free education will lead to low quality education On affordability, we should all note that ignorance is more expensive than knowledge. We are already paying the cost of a society with little knowledge in many ways which is far more expensive than free education to change Ghana to a ‘knowledge’ society. Most of the violence, wars and the resulting death of people in Africa (and elsewhere in the world) are mainly as a result of ignorance of some populace who are manipulated by greedy and ‘evil’ politicians. Can you imagine a politician recruiting a University, Polytechnic or Training College students to train to fight with guns during elections for those evil politicians to win? They will get only a few if any. But contrast the same situation with a JHS drop out who has no hope of guaranteed future income and that politician has a high chance of ‘success’. I agree that we should hold Akufo-Addo responsible to give the annual cost of the free education. This is prudent for financial management of the country. However, we should not ridicule the idea and consider the policy proposal too expensive or impossible. Free education for every Ghanaian to SHS level will be the best thing to happen to Ghanaians in the history of Ghana. I therefore encourage Akufo-Addo to implement his plan when he becomes president. I know we can afford it because we have been paying the cost of ignorance all these years. We can afford the cost of knowledge because it is cheaper than the cost of ignorance that we have been paying to date. The other concern raised by IMANI is that free education will lead to low quality education. As such, IMANI argues that we should focus on quality and not quantity. There is no doubt that quality should be the key focus of our education. However, the argument by IMANI suggests that free education and quality education are mutually exclusive (i.e you cannot have both). University education has become very expensive but many are complaining that the standard has fallen. It is therefore reasonable to say that paying high fees does not necessarily mean receiving better education and vice versa. In conclusion, free, quality and compulsory education will accelerate our development more than anything else so we should not settle for anything less. To the mind which thinks and believe that it can be done, IT CAN BE DONE! Let us all accept that it can be done and then offer suggestions of how it can be done. Thank God for politicians who are forward thinking!