Tamale, Aug. 02, GNA – Alhaji (Dr) Mustapha
Abdul-Hamid, the Minister of Information has said that government’s priority
and interest was to get every child educated in the country, which must be
embraced by all Ghanaians.
He said government’s decision to introduce the
free Senior High School (SHS) system was to ensure that children from the JHS
got the opportunity to progress to SHS, if their parents could not effort and
asked Ghanaians to stop politicizing education.
The minister was speaking to the media in
Tamale, where he threw more light on measures government was taking to improve
education in the country and that “the NPP had the interest of the country at
heart and would do things that would be in the interest of the nation”.
He said, Mr Ken Ofori Atta’s opinion did not
stand in the way of Akufo-Addo’s free SHS vision and asked the public to
disregard the recent remarks by the Finance Minister that those who can afford
school fees for their wards under the Free Senior High School (SHS) policy
should be allowed to do so.
Highlighting on the Double Track System, which
is expected to be implemented in Senior High Schools from September this year,
the Information Minister said a lot of research and consultation were being
done on the viability and feasibility of the policy before it was implemented.
He said, “The person whose vision we are
driving is the vision of the president of the Republic of Ghana and the
president of the Republic of Ghana’s vision is that every child who goes to
secondary school goes for free.
He said, “We are focused in delivery our
promises to the good people of Ghana and it is important not play politics with
education”
Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum, a Deputy Minister of
Education, who took the media through the Double Track System said, the concept
was an innovative strategy to ensure that, any child was not left out of
education.
“The
Double Track system is a stop-gap measure for the government to be able to
build more infrastructure to accommodate the ever-growing student population in
school”, he said.
GNA