President John Mahama has assured Ghanaians that his administration will sustain and enhance the Free Senior High School (SHS) policy.

“We will sustain and enhance the free SHS policy,” the President stated in his first public engagement since his swearing-in on Tuesday, January 7, at the 92nd Annual Jalsa (Convention) of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Mission at Pomadze in the Central Region, President Mahama.

The 2024 Annual Jalsa is on the theme “Justice and Peace; The Essential Ingredient for National Development”.

The three-day event is chaired by the Ameer and Missionary in Charge of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Mission, Alhaj Maulana Noor Mohammed Bin Salih.

The President again assured Ghanaians that the Government would address overcrowding in schools, complete abandoned projects and improve Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) education.

He noted that education was the cornerstone of national progress, and to this end, as promised, while strengthening basic education, the Government would sustain and enhance the free SHS policy so that Ghanaians gain the benefits that it was intended to bestow.

“We will address challenges such as overcrowding to ensure quality education at all levels,” he said.

The President said their plans also include free tuition for first-year students entering public tertiary institutions.

He also mentioned the completion of abandoned e-blocks and investments to provide equitable learning opportunities nationwide and across the whole education value chain.

President Mahama said these initiatives would empower the youth with the skills needed to excel in a rapidly changing world.

“We shall emphasize technical vocation education and training so that we can produce the skilled manpower that is needed for business and industry”.

He said he was going to set up a planning Committee to start working on the National Education Review Conference that he had promised.

The President said this conference would review the nation’s educational system right from kindergarten through basic to secondary to tertiary to technical vocational education.

He said it would identify what the hindrances to quality education were at each level of the nation’s educational system.

“I believe that this conference will come out with new ideas to provide us the outcomes that we need as a nation,” President Mahama said.

The Ameer and Missionary in Charge of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Mission, Alhaj Maulana Noor Mohammed Bin Salih, said the goodwill that Ghanaians had shown President Mahama through emphatically endorsing him as President must be seen to have spoken loudly that Ghanaians were no more in the mood of giving the abuse of their emotions and trampling upon their rights to God.

“At this time of our history as a people, Ghanaians (are) demanding justice if we must have peace,” he said.

“They are demanding pragmatism, a human pursuit of practicality over and above aesthetic qualities, a concentration of facts rather than emotions or ideals or for that matter empty loud noise and deceitful promises only.”