At the 70th anniversary celebration of Tamale Senior high school in Tamale(TAMASCO), 11th December 2021, the president reveals experiences of the efficient path to create a society of opportunities is through investment in education, skills acquisition and training of the youth.
In the President view, “five years on following the implementation of the free Senior High school program, which has guaranteed a minimum of Senior High school education for 1.6million Ghanaian children, I want to state without any equivocation that I am very proud of the policy and of its results this far”
He said, “some described Free SHS as waste, some said it would destroy our Ivy League Schools, and some indicated that the policy was going to compromise the quality of senior high school education. None of these has happened, and I am sure they have eggs on their faces now or should have”
He again continued: “The 2021 WASSCE results of the second batch of the “Akufo-Addo graduates” shows 54.08% of students recording A1-C6 in English, as opposed to 51.6% in 2016; 65.70% recording A1-C6 in Integrated Science in 2021, as opposed to 48.35% in 2016; 54.11% recording A1-C6 in Mathematics, as compared to 33.12% in 2016; and 66.03% recording A1-C6 in Social Studies, as compared to 54.55% in 2016. Lest we forget, the 2021 batch of students were the pioneers of the double-track system, which elicited a lot of vilification and unfounded criticism on its introduction.”
Another pointer of the value of the Free SHS policy, he stressed, is the huge rise in the percentage of students from TAMASCO, qualified to attend University.
He notified “In 2015, it was 29.2%; in 2016, it was 31.4%; in 2017, it was 34.7%; in 2018, it was 31.3%; in 2019, it was 46.3%; and in 2021, it was 45.8%. Surely, Chairperson, there can no longer be any controversy about the validity of the Free SHS policy and its consequential measures. It is working,”
The President appealed to the people of Ghana to “forgo partisan, parochial considerations, which confer little benefit, and all agree that Free SHS has to be a part of our national educational architecture, for, at least, a generation, if not forever. Our nation will clearly be empowered and enriched”.