Education is the shortest pathway between deprivation and opportunity, between despair and hope, between helplessness and promise. It gives meaning to the preamble of the 1992 Constitution, which among other things, provides that we “secure for ourselves and posterity, the blessings of liberty, equality of opportunity and prosperity.”
Mr Speaker, when we came into Government, we made an immediate and remarkable stride in education by rolling out our flagship Free SHS Programme in September 2017, just nine (9) months into our first year in Office. It was a promise to the people of Ghana and we kept it. To date, over 1.2 million students have benefited from the Free SHS Programme which has expanded access to secondary education and enabled an extra 400,000 students to enrol into Senior High Schools. Despite the few initial challenges in respect of implementation, Ghanaians have largely embraced this programme and the testimonies are endless.
Mr Speaker, in 2016, many ridiculed our capacity to implement the programme, citing unavailability of funds, inadequate physical classroom structures and other school facilities to support implementation, among others. Seeing how successful the
programme's implementation has been with such important policies such as the Double Track Year-Round Calendar, sustainable funding strategies, among others, our opponents are making a U-turn and promising a review of the programme, if they win power in the 2020 elections, except they have failed to specifically say what aspect they will review, and to what end and purpose?
Mr Speaker, It is also instructive to note that under the Progressively Free SHS Policy touted by the NDC when it was in government, they left arrears of GH¢30,120,552.00 (thirty million, one hundred and twenty thousand, five hundred and fifty-two Ghana Cedis) in respect of the 2015/ 2016 academic year when the programme started with day students only.
That has since been paid by the Akufo-Addo Government. Nothing at all was paid by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Government in respect of the 120,000 boarding students in thesssss academic year catered for under the high-sounding Progressively Free programme in the 2016/2017 academic year. Notwithstanding the initial hiccups, the Free SHS programme is here to stay and we are confident that the generality of Ghanaians are fully behind it.
Mr Speaker, let me assure the house that President Akufo-Addo is committed to ensuring that no child in this country will ever be left behind or denied access to senior high school education for the sole reason that their family is unable to pay for their education.
Mr Speaker, in our effort to achieve greater access to education, we recognised that access alone is not adequate in guaranteeing the quality education we desired. For this reason, Government is committed to ensuring quality and relevant education that will produce confident, skilled and global citizens who are ready and able to compete with their counterparts anywhere in the world.
Mr Speaker, we have, from the very beginning of this Administration, resolved to pursue bold and transformative measures to address fundamental challenges that had undermined education, including in particular, access to, equity in and quality of education. Permit me to run through some of the key measures taken.
Mr Speaker, please permit me to run through a few. First, Basic Schools had high incidence of fees and levies as Capitation Grant amount of GH¢4.5 per child per year that we
came to meet which was woefully inadequate. Research conducted by the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) in 2015 revealed that fees and levies charged to pupils hindered access and effective participation in basic education to those who had difficulty paying fees and levies imposed by the schools. Effective 2017/18 academic year, Capitation Grant amount was increased from GH¢4.5 per student per year to GH¢10.0 per student per year. The 122 per cent increase in per capita Capitation Grant has contributed to removing the cost barriers to free access and provide schools with minimum amount of funds required to keep schools running.
Mr Speaker, significant numbers of teachers in our public basic schools were untrained. In 2016, the ratio of pupil to trained teacher was 1:52 at the Kindergarten and 1:43 at Primary level.
Similarly, the percentage of trained teachers was 66 per cent at the Kindergarten level and 78 per cent at the Primary level. To improve the quality of education, we have had to increase the supply of trained teachers to our basic schools. Within the period, the pupil to trained teacher ratio has improved to 1:37 at the Kindergarten level and 1:33 at the
