The Education Minister Dr. Mathew Opoku Prempeh has stated that government will kick-start its flagship Free Senior High School project with $138 million.
According to the Minister, the best way to use the oil resources is to spend it on Free SHS to allow every Ghanaian student with the will to have access to the Education without financial impediments.
“This government has chosen that instead of spending $138 million on capacity building over oil money in a year that can serve as a starting point for our Free SHS”, he said.
Dr. Opoku Prempeh stated emphatically that “it is better for us to borrow to fund Free SHS than borrowing to chop the money. It is better to bring hope into those who are vulnerable to society”.
The Manhyia South lawmaker further stressed that his ministry won’t be persuaded by people who try to doubt their competence of implementing the project by asking what money would be spent on the project and how it would be paid.
“For those of us who have been entrusted to implement this, we are not going to look at the distracters. We are not going to be swayed by the people who are urging us to come out and tell us what we are going to pay, what we are not going to pay”, he stated.
The Free Senior High School project was a major campaign promise of the governing New Patriotic Party during the 2016 electioneering period and is expected to begin in the next academic year, September 2017 starting with the first year students.
On Thursday, June 22, the Education Minister named Abraham Attah as an ambassador of the Free SHS project which starts in September 2017 and is expected to spearhead the campaign on sensitising the public about it.
