Free SHS? Yes!

 

“Education in peace brings peace. Education in love brings love. Education in care brings care. But education in war brings war to all mankind.” – Edward Kofi Louis

We are teachers, having passed through pupil-teaching – Anyinasu (making friends with the late MD for Miklin Hotel, Michael Yaw Nsiah) off we went to Ejura, then Babaso as pupil-teacher headteacher. It was at that same Babaso that saw us off to Agona Training College for a whiff of training after edging out Kwadwo Baafi who had surreptitiously used our records to enter the college.

Then getting kicked from the college for daring to write about the administration of the college, Akrokerri abs orbed us, and we were taught ‘non scolae, sed vitae’, (not for school, but for life). Our parents could not afford to pay secondary school fees, so our best bet was the ‘free Teacher Training College’.

Hence, ‘education matters’ or issues of the milky fraternity tickle our fancy so much, even though we have had stints at the institution that checks the importation/exportation of goods and slugged it out in “palais de justice” to meet the likes of Akoto Ampaw.

Kofi Frimpong de asembeba, like Kofi Babone, or Yaro Mugu, someone dreamt and in his dream, like that of Martin Luther King Jr., he saw that Article 38 of the 1992 constitution: (2) The Government shall, within two years after Parliament first meets after the coming into force of this constitution, draw up a programme for implementation within the following ten years, for the provision of free, compulsory and universal basic education of which can be summed in a catchword, ‘free SHS’. Besides basic education, the Education Act, 2008 (Act 778) and the Children’s Act, 1998 (Act 560) guaranteeing the right to education could be invoked.

But ‘free education’ became a political football, and as accurately captured in the December 11 editorial of Daily Guide, “As usual opponents of the NPP especially the NDC mocked at Nana Akufo-Addo, describing his dream as utopian. Some of the NDC leaders said it was not doable because of several constraints, and even if it was possible, it could only materialise in 20 years… Before the 2016 election, the NDC stepped up its anti-free Senior High School campaign, describing the promise by NPP to introduce the policy as ‘419’.

It is now for or against ‘free SHS’. If you are NPP, you must be ‘for’; if you are NDC you must be ‘against’. So, members of the various political parties will be whipped into line.  The newspapers, supporting various political parties will have to toe the line, so Daily Guide editorial of December 11 and 12 will be, “Thieving School Heads, Shame!” “Of course, why would ‘thieving school heads’ not be shamed? We argue further, “They have thus lost the moral grounds to continue as headmasters and headmistresses. They have demonstrated that they cannot work with the government to implement the policy…”

If you are a literate Catholic, you are likely to be assailed by the news-vendor displaying ‘The Catholic Standard’, the icon newspaper which remained the sole ‘opposition newspaper’ to the PNDC at a time of the ‘Culture of Silence’ as admitted by the NDC founder, Jerry John Rawlings. The newspaper which featured Prof. Adu Boahen and his ‘Kontopiaat’ lectures that “tore into shreds the historical facts” peddled about Ghana by W. F. Ward as well as Claridge and Fage (Cameron Duodu: 2008).

Then, you read the editorial of the Catholic Standard of Sunday, December 17 – Saturday, December 23, 2023, “On the Interdiction of some Heads of Senior High School”.

As legal practitioners, we get nudged by the details of the said editorial by the Catholic Standard, “In our opinion, there is no way schools can avoid charging some fees, especially when the State is not always in a position to meet some essential school needs. The free SHS policy notwithstanding, there are occasions when schools have to celebrate epochal anniversaries and when iconic items like ‘anniversary cloths’ are essential.

On such rare occasions, it is unfair to call on the State to bear the cost of celebration of such anniversaries, to which GES officials and Government officials never miss to attend … the attempt to raise funds for legitimate needs should also not be criminalise. In some exceptional cases, one cannot completely blame Heads of Schools who genuinely are trying to run their schools effectively and efficiently through raising their own funds. When things go wrong, they are the very school authorities society will hold responsible for not being either proactive or not thinking out of the box …”

Defending the indefensible? So, we look at the 1992 Constitution, “Article 19 (1) A person charged with a criminal offence shall be given a fair hearing within a reasonable time by a court (2) A person charged with a criminal offence shall (c) be presumed to be innocent until he is proved, or has pleaded, guilty …”

We know that ours is an “accusatorial” or “adversarial” judicial system, and Article 19 (11) states, “No person shall be convicted of a criminal offence unless the offence is defined and the penalty for it is prescribed in a written law.”

So, now there is no Parent–Teacher Association (PTA); we rather have Parent Association (PA) only. What happens to the ‘teachers’; how do they articulate their concerns, or it is presumed that they do not have concerns?

It could be said that under the new arrangement, all schools are expected to adhere to the national prospectus without imposing any extra item apart from what has been officially prescribed so any deviation from this directive will incur the ire of the Ghana Education Service. The Computerised School Selection and Placement System (CSSPS) has been rolled out; prospective students are being lined up.

Meanwhile the position of Selina Anane Afoakwa, Headmistress of Kumasi SHS; Nathaniel Asamoah, Headmaster of Asanteman SHS; Andrews Boateng, Headmaster of Kumasi Senior High Technical School; Kwadwo Obeng-Appiah, Headmaster of Manso-Edubia SHS; Daniel Boamah-Duku, Headmaster of the Agric Nzema Community SHS, Gladys Sarfowaa, Headmistress of Nkawie Senior High Technical School; Ampong Ahmed Omar, Headmaster of Collins SHS; Afi Yaw Stephen, Headmaster of Berekum Senior High School; Joseph Jilinjeh Abudu, Headmaster of Odumaseman Senior High School, remains unclear.

It gladdens our hearts to note that the headmasters and headmistresses of the ‘top’ schools like Achimota School, Presbyterian Boys’ Senior High School, Ghana National College, St. Augustine’s College, Prempeh College, Adisadel College, Mfantsipim School, Wesley Girls High School, St. Mary’s Senior High School, Pope John Senior High School, Opoku Ware, Ahmadiyya, Kumasi have not been affected. Does anybody smell a rat?

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By Africanus Owusu – Ansah

 

 

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