TUG OF FREE SHS

I have carefully followed the fallout of the President’s state of the Nation address and just like I anticipated, the President’s promise of a “Progressive free SHS in 2015” has taken the Centre stage of the issues currently under discussion.

The main opposition party NPP has called the President’s intention as a theft of their headline policy in the 2012 election campaign-funny isn’t it?

The NDC too has maintained and in fact the president has recently said that the NPP and Akuffo Addo as a matter have no patent right over the implementation of a SHS programme in this country. Oh yeah - that’s true. Article 25 of 1992 constitution clearly calls for this policy and so I believe no individual can lay claim 

over the policy.

But then I come to the argument with a whole different direction and thinking. Sincerely speaking I still have a difficulty as to whether the president’s announcement of free SHS in 2016 was necessary in this year’s state of the Nation address at all. I will come to the merits of the issue and whether it is any different from what the NPP promised of which the President and the NDC vehemently opposed in the run-up to the 2012 election.

First and foremost, I doubt if apart from the attempt to take our attention off the hardships of the economy and the real state of the Nation, this announcement of free SHSwas meant for anything at all. We have so many issues to deal with currently and I think that if the president really has such will to implement this, then he should have waited and allowed us to fully concentrate on fixing this coma-struck economy rather than bringing in such distract announcement. Besides we have enough time between now and 2016.

Moreover I am most astonished by the sheer hypocrisy displayed by the president and the NDC at the recent turn of events. After almost rubbishing and condemning the initiative of NPP 2012 flag bearer to implement SHS with series of advertisements and commentaries that sought to create the impression that free SHS is not only impossible but an attempt to kill the education sector, I couldn’t hold my jaw from opening wide as I listened to the president in shock talking about free SHS.

I will now at this time run by you some of the commentaries by the president and senior NDC communicators and officials alike.

The president in the run-up to election posted as usual on his Facebook wall; “Free SHS is a misplaced priority if primary school pupils still pay school fees. Let us make that free first.” I doubt if anything has magically changed in 2 years of his administration. Oh Ok!!! It might by 2015.

Funny enough the Veep at a rally in Kade said something similar, also eluding to the claim that it is 

impossible.

 Well ….Perhaps you should see what Kwadwo Adu Asare former MP,Adenta said; “Free SHS is impossible and unrealistic”  The list can go on and on, with Okudjeto among others saying similar things.

Interestingly JH Mensah in the floor of parliament reminded us all why it cannot and should never be called free in the first place, saying that it would definitely be from our tax and that our priority should be on quality and access.

You remember the famous Pastor Mensah Otabil tape? SmH, where many NDC communicators capitalized on it to run-down Nana Addo’s free SHS? That education can never be free, that we pay taxes and should not be happy if any politician promises us free education, that free things do not guarantee quality?

In fact there are allegations by Kweku Baako and Nana Akomea that people from the ministry of information then, paid for that sound bite to played as adverts. Interesting!

But despite all these I have heard the communicators say that it would be unfair for some of us to call them hypocrites because the issues are not really the same…And that one is “ Free SHS now” while the other being the NDC is “Free SHS progressively”. But even with that, I struggle to find the difference. Per the speech, the government intends to roll out the policy in 2015, that is a year away I think. Funny for anyone to think, that limited period changes the status from the” NOW” to “PROGRESSIVE”.

Besides the 2012 manifesto of NDC called for access and quality first. I ask has any been achieved yet. The answer is negative. Even the 50-day senior high schools projected for the first year, a quarter of the president’s 200 senior high schools promised, was not achieved.

For quality, I would not go there. It is obvious. Some basic schools in the North are now recording 0% pass in the BECE. Last year in the Volta region only eleven BECE candidates had ‘6 Ones’. And also I am now tempted to believe that apart from an unnecessary attempt to make it seem like “we are crippling the campaign message of our opponents”, the president’s announcement of a free SHS in 2015 can best described as mischievous and hypocritical.

The sudden turn around and the haste in even trying to implement something that even the most sympathetic NDC communicators said could only be possible in the next 20 years, just under 3 years leaves me with the question;” what has changed?”

The basic requirement they put forth as necessary in an attempt to fully implement free SHS, that is ‘access and quality’ have yet been achieved. The economy is still in a deplorable state and I doubt if it is going to recover any time soon.

Well I would love to see that day when SHS will be free irrespective of who is implementing it, progressively or otherwise. What I would not love to see is a politics of double standards, and a politics of hypocrisy.