If, by the time you read this article, Government has released the cash for the starting of the Free Senior High School scheme, praise God. Yesterday’s edition of the state-owned Daily Graphic reported Deputy Education Minister, Yaw Osei Adutwum, as promising the 55th Annual Conference of the Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools (CHASS), held at Ho, that “your money will soon hit your accounts.” Dr. Adutwum is actually said to have indicated that the money will be released by close of the conference, today, Friday. We must be grateful for little mercies, as I have already indicated.
‘Promise-and-fail’
But, I hasten to wonder whether the education ministry, and government for that matter, couldn’t have done better with information flow. Another state-owned daily, the Ghanaian Times, the same yesterday, carried a front-page lead to the effect that Free SHS ready…Gov’t to send monies to schools by Sept. 11. The story recalled that, even though the government had indicated the monies would be advanced to the schools two weeks before schools reopen on September 11; with a week left for the schools to re-open, the monies had not been released. The heads naturally raised concerns, fearing that the free SHS programme could be adversely affected, if funds were not received ahead of the re-opening. It is intriguing how the Daily Graphic and some other media got today, Friday, the 8th of September, as the money arrival date and yet the Times reported that the minister gave no timelines.
Teachers excluded?
Be that as it may, it cannot be gainsaid that the information given the general public on the Free SHS policy has been quite inadequate. (Dear reader, is that also the case with this other well-intended programme: Paperless Transactions at the Ports?) Such an important organisation as CHASS complains that its members were inadequately involved in planning of the programme. Yesterday’s Times cited CHASS President Cecelia Kwakye Coffie as commending the programme, but, complaining that her group had been denied enough education and information on it. “It is important that we build confidence and trust in those we have entrusted with the management of our schools,” Mrs. Coffie was quoted as noting. If you leave stakeholders behind, you leave them to second thoughts. The government should be wary of the error.
Dangerous discretion
Number two concern relates to a failed promise. Before the government promised to release the monies to the schools two weeks before re-opening, what went into that decision? Have you realised what the breaking of the promise has led to? The Daily Heritage newspaper of yesterday said the school heads from across the country were contemplating using fees of continuing students to kick-start the Free SHS. Paper mentioned Samuel Gyebi Yeboah, the National Secretary of CHASS, as saying so in an interview in which he also reposed faith in the government with regards to the new education policy. Now, obviously, the diversion or misapplication of funds would be well-intended. But, the aftermath could be disastrous. What if the continuing students’ fees run out and the free education cash was still delaying?
What is even more serious in circumstances where public servants are pushed, or allowed to, use such discretions is that the option is invariably abused. By the time the money is ready and released, what debt has been accrued is simply unrealistic – inflated for self-gain. While we are at it, the government should, without further delay, come out with plans to defray existing debts on the hands of CHASS, accumulated from procuring items on credit to run the public schools. “If it has got to the time the students are not made to pay fees, then we the (head teachers) are going to struggle to pay for the things that we have bought on credit,” CHASS National Secretary, Samuel Gyebi Yeboah, is said to have lamented. When District Assemblies’ Common Fund, Health Insurance money and all such funds delay, the hardships it wrecks on implementers is simply a nightmare.
Cart before the horse?
Number three: Minister Osei Adutwum conceded that there were challenges with the system, but gave the assurance that the challenges were being addressed. He also assuaged the disappointment of the teachers by announcing that Government was going to outdoor the free SHS policy and it would be evident that it focuses on teachers as central implementing agents. Now, you don’t allow the snake to bite before you apply the serum, if you have any. Long before now; from day one, the teacher should have been made to know and feel he or she is a central implementing agent. ‘It is better late than none’ is the best proverb nonetheless. So, let the government do all it takes to – indeed – place the teacher at the middle of the novelty free second-cycle public schooling.
Having said that, I must add that it also behooves the members of CHASS, other school administrators and indeed all teachers and students to show keen interest in learning about the whole Free Senior High School project with the view to taking active part in it. You don’t sit aloof to complain about exclusion; you include yourself to enjoy the desired inclusion.
Placement problems solved?
Number four: Government’s umpteenth assurance that all who qualify will be given placement in the schools is not new; neither is it objectionable. It is desirable and the usual assurance. Trouble though is that – in this country – it is one thing giving such an assurance and another, completely different, thing when it comes to implementation. Ghana Today urges all duty-bearers to ensure every kid that made the qualifying grade is actually placed in a good enough public school. Quotas in prestigious schools for pupils from remote and underprivileged places should be implemented to the letter.
Dr. Adutwum also indicated that the initial challenges with the placement had been resolved and admonished school heads not to discriminate against any student who was placed in their schools. That smacks of complacency, unless you insist it is optimism. In any case, Ghana Today hereby cautions against self-righteousness. This and subsequent governments should be guided by the history of this country. The New Patriotic Party regime headed by Agyekum Kufuor launched an ambitious National Health Insurance Scheme in 2003 that was soon acclaimed to be the most generous in the whole wide world. By the time the NPP was exiting in January of 2009, the NHIS was unwell and that malady would worsen under the watch of the succeeding National Democratic Congress to the extent that, today, the scheme is almost at the emergency ward – in coma.
We must remember the President’s Special Initiatives started by the same Kufuor NPP in about 2003, but which the current NPP regime is not mentioning at all because it was poorly managed. We prefer to forget the PSI because they floundered: poor implementation. Not many people have forgotten the much-heralded Savannah Accelerated Development, but we daily discuss SADA for the negative reason: same bad, crass management. Kutu Acheampong invited himself onto the political scene through the barrel of the gun; whether you liked it or not, he had arrived. But, you couldn’t resist admiring his Operation Feed Yourself policy of 1972, if you were fair-minded. Even that one too soon fizzled out, failing to link up with its intended sequel – the Operation Feed Your Industries. And, by 1976/77, Ghana was so hungry as to attract a palace coup against Acheampong.
President must hear this
As Ghana Today draws the curtain on the Free SHS arrival, may I suggest that the ministries of Education, Food and Agriculture, Lands and Natural Resources as well as Local Government team up to make land and other resources available to all public schools in Ghana. Yes, farming lands; and this country should go back to the OFY days when each school cultivated all the cereals, legumes, rhizomes and vegetables it required. If you can tweak the Planting for Food and Jobs policy to include the schools growing what they eat, fine. But, President Akufo-Addo, if you are going to feed the students on the prescription of the ‘Rice Master’ whose species are from Thailand, Vietnam and other foreign countries, your free SHS will come crushing.
In that final analysis, what you are sure to deliver is knowledge-free education for the kids of the poor who will be malnourished and stunted in growth. And, the rich, influential and politically connected will be dogging your free SHSs for private ones, home or abroad. You don’t want that. Do you?
Ghana Today
…with A. C. Ohene (obk.press@yahoo.com)
