Mahama: Free SHS Will Be Reviewed Within My First 100 Days In Office

The 2024 flagbearer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), John Dramani Mahama, has declared his intention to conduct a comprehensive review of the Free Senior High School Policy (Free SHS) during the first 100 days of his potential term following the 2024 general elections.

Mr. Mahama emphasized the critical role of a strong foundation in primary education and articulated his plan to establish a committee of education experts to design an improved framework for the implementation of the policy.

During an address to the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in Accra on November 7, he highlighted the importance of a stakeholder summit involving education experts, teachers, parents, students, and community leaders.

The primary objective of this summit would be to enhance the Free SHS system and enhance the quality of primary education.

“Within the first 100 days in government, we will convene a stakeholder summit that brings together educationists, experts, teachers, parents, students and opinion leaders to deliberate on how to improve the implementation of the Free SHS system and also improve the quality of our basic education,” Mr Mahama.

The Free SHS policy was spearheaded by the Akufo-Addo-led government in 2017. Some stakeholders have called for a review of the programme due to several challenges such as financial constraints.

Furthermore, Mr. Mahama suggested a shift back to West Africa Examination Council (WAEC) assessments for students within the regional bloc.

He contended that depending solely on local exams conducted and evaluated by Ghana may not offer a precise evaluation of student achievements when compared to their counterparts in neighboring English-speaking nations.

Mahama pointed out, “We will return Ghana to the regional exams conducted by the West African Examinations Council so that it will be possible to compare the performance of our children with our English-speaking neighbours in the sub-region”.

“Right now, we write a local Ghana exam, we mark it ourselves, we mark our own scripts and we give ourselves high marks… If you don’t have any benchmark to compare, how can you tell you are improving?”

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