John Mahama stressed the importance of a strong foundation in elementary education while speaking at the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in Accra. The Free SHS policy has been the cornerstone of Ghana’s education system, and he described his intention to put together a team of educational professionals to provide an enhanced framework for administering it.
The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) leader, John Dramani Mahama, has declared that should he be elected in the general elections in 2024, he will examine the Free Senior High School Policy (Free SHS) in its entirety within the first 100 days of office.
He said he thought a wide range of stakeholders should be involved in the evaluation. The goal of the proposed stakeholder summit is to improve the free SHS system and raise the standard of basic education. It will bring together education experts, educators, parents, students, and opinion leaders.
According to Mahama, “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.”
Along with this pledge, Mr. Mahama suggested going back to the previous practice of employing the West Africa Examination Council (WAEC) for student assessments within the region, which was implemented before the implementation of the Free SHS program.
He maintained that comparing student performance to that of their peers in nearby English-speaking nations may not be possible if one only relies on locally administered and graded exams. It would be possible to assess the competitiveness and caliber of Ghanaian education more accurately by going back to the regional WAEC exams.
At present, we administer a local exam in Ghana, write it, evaluate our scripts, and assign high scores to ourselves. How do you know you are getting better if you don’t have a reference point to work against? Mr. Mahama made a note of it.
The significance of the Free SHS program and its future in Ghana’s educational landscape is highlighted by the introduction of these proposals.
Mr. Mahama’s proposal intends to guarantee that Ghanaian students obtain a top-notch education that equips them to compete not only nationally but also within the larger West African area by including a variety of stakeholders and considering international benchmarks.
