Flagbearer hopeful for the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Dr. Ekow Spio- Garbrah, is critical of the heavy cost of the Free SHS policy introduced by the Nana Addo-led administration – explaining that the cost involved is hanging around the nation’s neck like an albatross.
Speaking in an exclusive interview on Atinka Midday News, the former Trade Minister noted that the policy has tripled the cost of education and would review it when he passes the test of flagbearership and the presidential race.
The Free SHS, he mentioned is an opportunity for all young ones to go school and that it is proper for everyone to go to school but bearing full cost, half cost or none by the state is an issue worth evaluating.
There is the need to emulate the US type of free education in public schools where students do not move from one town to another. Rather, students are bused from home to schools within short distances.
Thus, students in Ghana should for instance not move from Ho to Koforidua because of Free SHS.
According to him, it is costly to provide sleeping places and food for these students who travel to further their education in distant SHSs. He said this raises the cost of education any parents who want food and shelter as part of education must pay for.
Education is not food and shelter but the knowledge and wisdom acquired from school through human resource, textbooks, science and art laboratories, workshops amongst others as well as infrastructure are the pillars of education
According to the former Education Minister, it is quite absurd to peg the feeding of the student at GHC 1.10 per meal, meaning GHC 3.30 per day. “Definitely with the kind of hardship swallowing us, how many human beings will survive with such an amount?” Dr. Spio-Garbrah asked.
He said students are provided with poor meals that lack balance diet, adding that the situation led to the outbreak of meningitis at the Kumasi Acadamy (KUMACA)
On the issue of managing the economy, Dr. Ekow Spio Garbrah bemoaned the hardship Ghanaians are going through describing it as “very tight” that even foreigners are all weeping.
And that due to the current hardship within the system, IMF has written to the government that it could extend the deal till the end of the year 2019.
Finance Minister, Ken Ofori Atta recently called on the masses to tighten their belt as we are experiencing difficulties. The government cannot even balance their budget, most of their flagship projects have not been achieved, he argued.
The motto now is “whose time is it? The response is “It is Spio’s time”.
Ghana |Atinkaonline.com| Patrick Ofoe Nudzi