The President of the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), Angel Carbonu, is demanding transparency regarding the proposed Free Senior High School (SHS) Bill being discussed in Parliament.

The Majority Leader in Parliament, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, announced that they are ready to introduce a Free Senior High School Bill.

This legislation aims to make the free SHS policy binding on successive governments. He indicated that a finalized bill is ready for presentation by the Education Minister, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum.

• Read also: Parliament to introduce Free SHS bill to make it binding on successive governments

Mr Afenyo-Markin stated that the move is to prevent any government from attempting to abolish the policy.

In an interview on Joy FM’s Newsnite, Mr Carbonu said they were unaware of the politicians' intention to introduce a bill that could potentially impact the policy.

As such, he is demanding that the government engage the union and other stakeholders in the education sector to evaluate the document before it is introduced to Parliament.

“We want to understand what is going on. What the government wants to reform. What aspect of education does government want to pass a law on. What are the ingredients in that document? Who formulated the document and what is the purpose of what has been formulated? ”  he told host Evans Mensah on July 3.

The NAGRAT president explained that policies involving education require extensive consultation since everyone will be affected and must not be handled as a private matter.

• Read also: Suspend proposed Free SHS bill and engage stakeholders – NAGRAT to government

He stressed that if the government fails to heed their call for stakeholder engagement, the policy could potentially fail at the implementation stage.

“We those who are practitioners in education, we cananot claim to own education or cannot claim monopoly over how education should be run.

“Education is for the people. You cannot under any circumstances come up with a major change and shift in how education is operated without wider consultation and the buy in of the people other than that when it comes it would fail at implementation stage,” he said.