The Director and Proprietor of a private educational facility in Kukurantumi in the Abuakwa North District of the Eastern Region has indicated that the implementation of Free Senior High School (SHS) policy has had no effects on private SHSs.
The owner of Bright Senior High School, Bright Amponsah, is of the view that the policy is rather a challenge to the Conference of Heads of Private Schools to strengthen the academic performances.
Mr. Amponsah, who was speaking in an interview with Onua FM on Friday, January 28, refuted claims that the Free SHS policy since its implementation has affected enrolment in private schools.
He rather admitted that the policy has made secondary education more accessible by luring most of the students to choose public schools over private schools.
Yet, Mr Amponsah is optimistic that the private SHSs have the equal opportunity to increase enrolment by enhancing teaching and learning to achieve excellent results in the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).
Private schools’ performances in WASSCE, according him, will do the magic and compel parents to send their children to private SHSs.
“I disagree with those saying that Free SHS policy has impacted negatively on private SHSs and that private high schools are seeing little to no activity.”
The heads of private high schools have to adopt new strategies in enhancing teaching and learning to achieve better WASSCE results which will compel the public to patronize the services of private SHSs, he reiterated.
Bright Senior High School, for instance, he cited, has printed its own textbooks and accompanying workbooks for each subject.
The books cover the entire SHS curricula and must be completed by every student before the WASSCE.
The textbooks have been written by people who have many years of experience in teaching.
The workbooks have questions drawn from past papers hence the fact that students from the school excel in WASSCE.
Aside from these, Bright Senior High School has over the years been keen on the quality of teachers it recruits, he continued.
The school’s management ensures that a first degree will be the minimum qualification for teachers, he observed.
With the above strategy adopted by the school, the proprietor has said that it has helped the performances of the school over the years especially in the 2021 WASSCE.
An analysis of the results of the 800 students who sat for the exit exams shows that 80% scored between 8As and 5As in the various subjects while 15% had, at least, 4As. Only 1% had just an A.
Mr. Amponsah has thus indicated that the school is poised and hopes to produce a solid crop of global leaders in the near future.
By Maxwell Otoo|Onua FM|3news.com|Ghana