{"id":466453,"date":"2018-02-22T02:00:35","date_gmt":"2018-02-22T02:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ghana-mma.com\/2018\/02\/22\/free-shs-government-is-right-to-address-access-issues-deputy-education-minister\/"},"modified":"2018-02-22T02:00:35","modified_gmt":"2018-02-22T02:00:35","slug":"free-shs-government-is-right-to-address-access-issues-deputy-education-minister","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/02\/22\/free-shs-government-is-right-to-address-access-issues-deputy-education-minister\/","title":{"rendered":"Free SHS: Government is right to address access issues \u2013 Deputy Education Minister"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div id=\"medsection1\">\n<!-- End of html generated by this->header() --><\/p>\n<p class=\"floatLeft\">General News of Thursday, 22 February 2018<\/p>\n<p class=\"floatRight\"><strong>Source: <\/strong>www.ghanaweb.com<\/p>\n<p>2018-02-22<\/p>\n<div class=\"article-left\">\n<p class=\"article-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/78074763.295.jpg\" alt=\"Yaw Adutwum New\" title=\"Yaw Adutwum New\" width=\"295\" height=\"169\" \/><span class=\"play-icon\">play video<\/span><span class=\"image_caption\"><span>Deputy Education Minister, Dr Yaw Adutwum<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"noPrint\">\n<div id=\"537626303\" style=\"width:300;height:250;margin:0;padding:0\">\n<p>\t\t  <noscript><iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"b2ad7fa7fd\" name=\"b2ad7fa7fd\" src=\"http:\/\/ghanaweb-d.openx.net\/w\/1.0\/afr?auid=537626303&amp;cb=151125813973067\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" width=\"300\" height=\"250\"><a href=\"\/\/ghanaweb-d.openx.net\/w\/1.0\/rc?cs=b2ad7fa7fd&amp;cb=151125813973067\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/1519264835_208_ai\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><\/iframe><\/noscript><\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p style=\"clear:right\">Deputy Education Minister, Dr Yaw Adutwum has rebutted claims by a section of the public that government has focused its attention to addressing access to the detriment of other challenges in education sector. <\/p>\n<p>The deputy Education Minister insisted that contrary to those assertions, government has instituted measures to curb the challenges and improve the provision of education in the country. <\/p>\n<p>Many people including former Vice Chancellor of University of Ghana, Professor Aryeetey have raised concerns over government&#8217;s primary focus on \u2018easy\u2019 access to education instead of making \u201cquality education\u201d a priority as far as the implementation of free Senior High School (SHS) Policy is concerned. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cAccess to education facilities which is very very important and needs to be pursued at all times. But as a result of many efforts that we\u2019ve made as a nation over the years, the access problem is not as acute as it was 15 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago. It\u2019s not as acute as that,\u201d Prof Aryeetey argued while adding that, \u201cIf that is the most important thing today, why are we focusing on something that may not be as pressing? Why are we not focusing on ensuring that the schools that we\u2019ve built can deliver?\u201d  <\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/content.jwplatform.com\/players\/n7lzlWRB-GtVgZhNx.html\" width=\"600\" height=\"350\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"auto\" allowfullscreen=\"\" style=\"position:absolute;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>But responding to these concerns in an interview with www.ghanaweb.com, Dr Adutwum explained that \u201cif you are an educationist and you know education policy and administration you will realise that the access debate that people normally associate with infrastructure, they miss the point there and also when you talk about let us focus on access and not quality, the mistake you are making is that you have forgotten 100, 000 students who are at home because of lack of access so you introduce a serious equity issue that you are not even thinking about, you are not thinking about those from deprived communities\u201d <\/p>\n<p>He emphasized that government has put in place concrete measures to deal with the challenge of quality in educational sector especially issues of quality as a result of the introduction of Free SHS. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The balance you have to do is improve access but confront quality and make sure that as you boost access you are also improving quality. We are going to get problems fixed as we move along. I don\u2019t want students to be staying in their homes. I don\u2019t want to be adding 100, 000 frustrated students to a pool of frustrated JHS graduates who could have gone to SHS but couldn\u2019t go because their parents couldn\u2019t afford,\u201d he argued.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"600\" height=\"350\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/SqY9SFX9Kek\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; encrypted-media\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The free Senior High School initiative has been touted by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) as a major policy and has reportedly absorbed more than 90, 000 first year students but has been fraught with challenges of inadequate materials, infrastructure and feeding for the students.<\/p>\n<p><!-- uploaded by: 49 updated by: 49 --><\/p>\n<p><!-- Start of html generated by this->footer() -->\n<\/div>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a style=\"display:none\" rel=\"follow\" href=\"http:\/\/megatheme.ir\/\" title=\"\u0642\u0627\u0644\u0628 \u0648\u0631\u062f\u067e\u0631\u0633\">\u0642\u0627\u0644\u0628 \u0648\u0631\u062f\u067e\u0631\u0633<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>General News of Thursday, 22 February 2018 Source: www.ghanaweb.com 2018-02-22 play videoDeputy Education Minister, Dr Yaw Adutwum Deputy Education Minister, Dr Yaw Adutwum has rebutted claims by a section of the public that government has focused its attention to addressing access to the detriment of other challenges in education sector. The deputy Education Minister insisted [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":466454,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-466453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=466453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466453\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}