Within The First 100 Days In Office, We’ll Review Free SHS

The flagbearer of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), John Dramani Mahama, has announced a review of the Free Senior High School Policy (Free SHS) within the first 100 days of taking office if elected in the 2024 general elections.

Mr Mahama emphasised the importance of a solid foundation in basic education and outlined his intention to assemble a panel of educational experts to formulate an improved framework for implementing the policy.

He was addressing the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in Accra on Tuesday, November 7, underscoring the need for a stakeholder summit that would involve educationists, teachers, parents, students, and opinion leaders.

This summit would aim to enhance the Free SHS system and elevate the quality of basic 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.

Additionally, Mr Mahama proposed a return to the West Africa Examination Council (WAEC) for student assessments within the regional bloc.

He argued that relying solely on local exams administered and graded by Ghana may not provide an accurate assessment of student performance compared to their peers in neighbouring English-speaking countries.

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?”