IntroductionThe New Patriotic Party Flag-bearer, Nana Akufo Addo outlined his vision at the recent IEA Presidential Encounter to demonstrate to Ghanaians his readiness to lead the country. One of the most important parts of his vision is to see Ghana move from a ‘’Guggisburg economy’’ to an industrialized modern African state. This requires an educated and skilled work force which would be addressed through the provision of quality education for all. Nana Addo’s proposal for a free Senior High School (SHS) including technical and vocational education, is aimed at building the requisite human capital base to support the accelerated economic transformation programme. This policy has generated lots of discussions among Ghanaians especially among supporters of the two major political parties – the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) regarding the feasibility of the policy. In this paper, I have attempted an examination of the funding proposals for the policy and the extent to which these proposals could be sustained. This is important to take the debate out of party politics, especially because there is no Ghanaian who opposes the provision of quality and affordable education at all levels.Funding of free senior high education Nana Addo provided a funding framework for this bold proposal. This includes ‘’a percentage of oil revenues allocated to the Ghana National Petroleum Company (GNPC) and for funding the budget (the Annual Budget Funding Amount) and a greater percentage of the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFUND)’’. The additional funding required to finance free SHS is put at about 1% of GDP. This according to Nana Akufo Addo will raise the total education budget to 4.1% of GDP in 2012 and to 5.8% of GDP in 2016, a figure below the UNESCO minimum of 6%. In fact the total education budget by 2016 will be equivalent to the level achieved in 2008.The use of oil revenues to finance education is not new. Many successful oil producing countries spend the bulk of their oil wealth on education. In Norway, education budget is about 7.9% of GDP; whilst Malaysia, Brazil and Saudi Arabia spend about 5.8% of GDP on education. In fact, Brazil has set up a Basic Education Development Fund to which oil revenues are allocated annually. Timor Leste, a small oil producing country spends about 14% of GDP on education. These have been influenced by the fact that human capital is the most important and most sustainable resource of any country. Spending on education creates resources that support the sustainable growth of the economy through increased productivity, increased income levels, and increased tax revenues. This is demonstrated in the following Graph which shows that countries that invest more in education also have higher living standards.Figure 1. Relationship between Education Development and Welfare