Mahama says funding for free SHS will be in 2015 budget

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Created on Monday, 03 March 2014 00:00

Mahama says funding for free SHS will be in 2015 budget

President John Mahama says persons criticising the Education Minister for saying she does not know the source of funding for the proposed free Senior High School education, should leave her alone.

According to the president, it is not the duty of the Minister, Prof. Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang to determine the source of funding for the project.

Mrs. Opoku-Agyemang is reported to have stated in an interview with local television network, TV3 that, “I am not sure in practical ways how that funding is going to be raised. But first you need to sell the idea then you cost it and then you move on to find the money”.

Her comments drew criticisms from opposition members who say it was unacceptable for the minister to say she did not have an idea how the project was going to be funded after the president made firm statements in Parliament that fees for students would be absorbed by government starting from 2015.

Addressing a gathering at at Nyanoa in the Upper West Akyem District of the Eastern Region at a ceremony to cut the sod for the construction of 50 new community day senior high schools (SHSs), president Mahama said, he should be held responsible for raising the GH¢71 million requird to fund the project and not the minister.

He said Mrs. Opoku-Agyemang was tasked specically to develop the roadmap for the free SHS but not to look for funding for its implemtantion.

"The Minister for Education was given a job to produce a road map for the progressive introduction of free senior high school and cost it. She has done so. It is my responsibility asPresident to find the money, and in 2015 when we present a budget to parliament; there will be an allocation for the commencement of the free SHS," the president responded.

President Mahama said Finance Minister Seth Terkper will provide a detailed plan regarding funding the free SHS policy when he presents the 2015 budget statement to Parliament.

There has been an intense debate over the free SHS policy when the president announced during his State of the Nation Addrss last week that his government will implement a free SHS for day senior high schools beginnng 2015.

The opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) criticised him harshly for stealing their idea after initially pooh-poohing it.

The signature campaign promise of th presidential candidate of the NPP, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo in the 2012 elections campaign was free SHS.

President Mahama then attacked the promise as an unrealistic and dangerous weapon that could destroy the country's educational system.

"When I talk about our secondary school policy, the NPP becomes like a spoilt child. We believe the problem of secondary education is more about access rather than affordability for now if you consider Ghana’s national priorities,” he said in 2012.

He argued that to improve access, his government would - if he won the elections - build 200 day senior high schools (50 every year from 2013) over the four years of his first term.

But before the foundation stone was laid for the first of the first 50 of the 200 schools (which he did Monday at Nyanoa), the president announced the implementation of the free day SHS, angering his opponents.

The announcement prompted questions from opposition politicians and journalists who ask whether the foundation Mr. Mahama said needed to be laid before the introduction of free SHS had been laid.

The president said the fifty schools to be constructed this year would have laid the grounds for the policy.

He told a cheering crowd at the sod-cutting ceremony that the first batch of students to be admitted into the school, which he hopes will be completed by August next year, will not pay any fees.

Source:  Myjoyonline.com