The Executive Director of Africa Education Watch, Kofi Asare, is wondering how a Free SHS law will be different from the various acts governing education in Ghana.

The proposed law will ensure that the policy is binding on successive governments.

Mr Asare expressed concerns about the content of the potential law, noting that the government already passed a pre-tertiary law in 2020, which includes provisions for Free SHS.

Speaking on Top Story on Tuesday, June 11, the educationist said, "However, if I pick the pre-tertiary education law which the government passed in 2020 and I look at Section 3, I see Free Senior High School caption there.

“The pre-tertiary Act which is Act 10(49) which was passed sometime in December 2020 under Section 3 - … and pre-tertiary simply means the level of our education below tertiary. .. And so pre-tertiary constitutes this portion of our system.”

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“The law provides under Section 2 for free compulsory universal basic education and in Section 3, the law provides for free secondary education and simply says that secondary education in its different form including TVET shall be free and accessible to all eligible candidates,” he said.

Mr Asare emphasised that while it is positive to see Free Senior High School enshrined in law, it is already captured in the pre-tertiary education law under Section 3.

Thus, he questioned what would be in the new provisions of the Free SHS law that would be different from the existing law.

He clarified that the pre-tertiary law outlines and reinforces the constitutional right to basic education and does the same for the provision of secondary education.

“So I’m still wondering what will be in a separate Free Senior High School law,” he said.

He added, “So I’m not too clear what a separate Free Senior High School law will contain different from what is already in the pre-tertiary education Act which was passed by this government in 2020.”