The Senior Programmes Manager at SEND Ghana, Harriet Nuamah-Agyemang, has called on the government to establish a database with accurate information on the poor and vulnerable in the country.

Speaking on the JoyNews National Dialogue on the 'The Free SHS Promise', she explained that this database will make the implementation of social interventions like the Free SHS policy easier.

Mrs Nuamah-Agyemang said that a programme like Free SHS can effectively target which section of the public needs to contribute to the expenses to support the government in funding the policy.

“We can make it free to some extent for some category of people and make it totally free for those who cannot afford it at all. In a sense, we are addressing the same situation. I can send my ward and pay GHS100, somebody can still send their ward and pay GHS50,”she explained.

“Somebody will send their ward and pay nothing. At the end of the day, it's like insurance; my GH₵100, your GH₵50 and others their GH₵20 will be added together to also support those who cannot afford it at all,” the SENG Ghana Senior Programmes Manager added.

Mrs Nuamah-Agyemang stated that because the Free SHS is domestically funded it is taking a toll on the government especially since the country is seemingly not generating enough to support the programme to satisfaction.

“If we find that government alone cannot bear the cost, how do we pass on costs to parents like that?” She quizzed, adding that if the cost is shared it reduces the burden on the government.

“I believe that is the way to go because as a country, we are not generating the revenues that we need to address the needs of this country. Otherwise, we would have to increase taxes here and there and the citizenry cannot pay those taxes. So we have to sit around the table and dialogue,” she added.

This comes after the latest JoyNews Hotline Documentary, 'Empty Plates: The Free SHS Promise' by investigative journalist Kwetey Nartey, confirmed an acute shortage of food items in many Senior High Schools (SHS) across the country.

Among other things, JoyNews’ investigations revealed that first-year students of some Senior High Schools (SHS) across the country were forced to eat one specific meal for lunch and supper for an entire term.

In another case, one of the senior high school heads resorted to treating weevil-infested bags of maize supplied by the Free SHS secretariat with neem leaves to enable the school to feed the students.

The documentary revealed many school heads are hard-pressed in their bid to feed the students properly. But, the stark reality is, that they can only offer the students what government supplies.

The Executive Director of Africa Education Watch, Kofi Asare blamed the overly political nature of Free SHS as the reason why it has become tough to admit the challenges faced by the policy.

He noted that when the context in which the challenges are raised sometimes "politicised" government takes on a defensive posture while addressing them.

“There is nowhere in Africa apart from South Africa that Free Senior High School was not a political promise before it became a policy. So I keep saying that the overly political nature of the policy makes it difficult to admit to genuine challenges,” he said.

This, he said, makes it tough to seek genuine reforms to achieve the desired outcomes.