The Minister of Education, Dr. Mathew Opoku Prempeh, wants the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to apologise to Ghanaians for initially chastising the Free Senior High School policy.
Addressing a durbar of chiefs and people Saboba as part of President Akufo-Addo’s tour of the Northern and North East Regions, the Education Minister said the NDC has been deceiving Ghanaians on the matter since 2012.
“After mounting a lot of hostility to Free SHS, if NDC now accepts Free SHS, the first thing they should do is to apologise to His Excellency the President for deceiving the good people of Ghana for the last eight years.”
Dr. Opoku Premepeh’s comments come after the flagbearer of the NDC, John Mahama refuted the government’s claims he will cancel the free SHS policy should the NDC return to power.
Mr. Mahama said a future NDC government will only hold stakeholder consultations to address the bottlenecks confronting the smooth implementation of the policy.
New curriculum
The Education Minister also lauded the current reforms taking place in the education sector including the introduction of a new curriculum starting in the oncoming academic year.
He said the “new curriculum is supposed to transform education” for the better.
Dr. Prempeh reminded of Ghana’s poor showing in the 2015 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development survey of 15-year-olds picked from 76 countries.
“Not long ago in 2015, when we did exams in selected countries, Ghana chopped last. His excellency the President is making sure Ghana never chops last in any competition.”
The OECD rankings were based on an amalgamation of international assessments, including the is own Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests.
