SUMMARY
1. In 2017, the free SHS policy was birthed by the Akufo Addo Government in fulfillment of a campaign promise.
2. Among other things, the policy was intended to absorb all fees thus removing any financial barrier to secondary education.
3. Many well meaning Ghanaians, including Dr. Addo Kuffour, Her Ladyship Sophia Akuffo and Ken Ofori Atta, cautioned the government about the cost implications of the policy. All these people were ignored.
4. Fast forward, government’s inability to honour its financial obligations towards the policy has turned the free SHS into a “monstrous fetish” devouring those supposed to nurture it to exude its magical powers of protecting its owners and worshippers.
5. Many Headmasters have fallen victim to inhumane interdictions as government covers up its own failures of inadequate funding of the schools. The most recent of these victims of diverted aggression is the Headmistress of West African Senior High School (WASS).
6. Amidst this persecution of Headmasters, the “voices of conscience” who had been cacophonously vociferous in the recent past have kept absolute silence.
7. Government is behaving like the proverbial “Konongo Kaya”, who is unable to carry the load of the free SHS, yet it will not allow parents to carry it either.
8. Many Ghanaians have called for a review of the policy to allow burden sharing with parents, but H. E. Nana Akufo Addo had condemned such voices saying their calls meant cancellation of the Policy.
9. Similar to going to the IMF, government is adopting a posture of “we shall not review the free SHS today, we shall not review the free SHS tomorrow, and we shall not review the free SHS as long as NPP remains in power.”
10. If we continue on this tangent, the free SHS will be rushed to the “Review Theatre” on a stretcher for surgical operation.
11. PTAs should take their hands off the free SHS because their well intended action of mobilising funds to help the schools is being used by the GES to interdict and remove from office some Headmasters. The PTA’s mobilisation of funds is being used against Heads as unauthorised collection of fees.
12. Director General of the GES, Dr. Eric Nkansah should pull the breaks on these unnecessary interdictions otherwise, he might one day be forced to guzzle from the chalice that he helped poison.
1. THE “MONSTROUS FETISH”
In 2017, the free Senior High School policy was birthed by the Akufo Addo Government in fulfilment of a campaign promise made to Ghanaians. The policy was intended to fully absorb all fees paid by parents, increase enrolment, and improve the quality of teaching and learning in schools. The success of any policy is measured on its outcomes, not on its intentions.
Laudable, though the intentions of the policy were, and still are, the free SHS policy has been turned into a “monstrous fetish” moving in an ugly, devilish and frightening appearance, devouring those supposed to attend to it and nurture it, to exude its magical powers of protecting or aiding its owners and worshippers.
Since the interdiction of the first victim of this “monstrous fetish” in the 2017/2018 academic year, one Mr. Samuel Salamat of La- Presby SHS (La-Presec), the free SHS has been caught up in a tornado of funding confusion, which is moving at a terrific speed like a hurricane in the Carribbean, a willy willy in Australia, and a typhoon in the South East Asian Sea, breaking down and sweeping away everything in its path.
The list of victims includes William Kusi Yeboah and Agbedanu of Adisadel College and Rev. Dr. John Boadu of Aggrey Memorial Zion School, both in Cape Coast. Others are the Heads of Aburi Girls Senior High School, Tema Senior High School, Fijai Senior High School, and many more. The wicked, heartless, and inhumane claws of this “monstrous fetish” gripped without mercy or any provocation, Dr. Mrs. Shine Agatha Ofori of West African Senior High School (WASS), a couple of days ago.
The main accusation levelled against all these Heads of School has always been collection of unauthorised fees.
2. CAUTION THROWN OVERBOARD
Many well-meaning Ghanaians had, at the inception of this policy, the courage and love to caution the Akufo Addo government about the cost implications of the free SHS and wondered how the government was going to get the funds to implement the policy. They advised the President to tread cautiously. Notable among these were Prof. Ivan Addai Mensah, a former Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana, Legon, Her Ladyship Sophia Akuffo, a former Chief Justice of the Republic, Dr. Addo Kuffour, a former Minister of Health and later Defence, and Hon. Ken Ofori Atta, the government’s own Minister of Finance. In fact, Ken Ofori Atta was on record to have said that he couldn’t imagine sending his ward to Achimota School, dropping him and leaving the school without paying anything, while he could pay for ten students.
Fast forward, this caution of funding challenge has reared its ugly head like a prophesy which has come to pass, posing challenges to the Headmasters and Headmistresses managing the schools. As school enrolments shot up, boarding accommodation and classroom space became increasingly limited, resulting in double tracking of both students and teachers. The problem of inadequate space still persists.
The greatest challenge facing the free SHS policy now, as cautioned by many statesmen and state women, is funding. Despite the policy of no fees, the government’s inability to adequately fund the free Senior High School has resulted in parents taking up a chunk of the cost because they don’t want their wards to suffer the hardships imposed on them by the government.
Supply of textbooks, exercise books, notebooks, uniforms, house dresses, and many more items have always delayed, forcing parents to step in.
Then, the dwindling food supplies to schools, and poor quality and quantity of food whenever served, reared their ugly heads, negatively affecting the growth and health of these adolescent boys and girls. Here again, parents have had to come to the rescue to provide food, either individually to their wards every weekend, or collectively as Parent Teacher Associations, organised in year groups to voluntarily solicit funds from members to help the schools. Dr. Amoah, an old student of Mfantsipim School, Cape Coast, and Mr. Ibrahim Mahama, an old student of Tamale Senior High School, showed their benevolence by gifting truckloads of rice, cooking oil, tin fish, flour, etc, to their alma mata when those schools were in crisis, because the government failed to honour its financial obligations towards them and their so called Buffer Stock Suppliers. Government owes the schools and the suppliers heavily.
Quite recently, the NDC Member of Parliament of Builsa South, Hon. Clement Apaak, had to assist an SHS in his constituency with bags of rice because the school ran out of food. The NPP Member of Parliament for Binduri, Hon. Abdulai Abanga, had also come to the rescue of the Binduri SHS with twenty five bags of rice, when the students rioted for not being fed for over a month. Food is one item on the free SHS cost items that one can not do without in boarding schools, as well as day schools where one meal a day is part and parcel of the policy. So why is the government so callous and insensitive to the plight of these Heads of School and their students? There is no doubt that the chickens are coming home to roost.
3. THE CASE OF DR. MRS. SHINE AGATHA OFORI OF WASS
The Headmistress of the West African SHS, Dr. Mrs. Shine Agatha Ofori, was interdicted last week and asked to hand over the administration of the school to the Greater Accra Regional Director of Education. Her offence was an alleged collection of unauthorised fees. For the first time in the history of interdictions, the announcement was not in the form of a letter, but rather a flyer, spread on social media. A source close to the GES Headquarters revealed that the Headmistress declined taking the interdiction letter from the Director General because she did not know what offence she had committed. That infuriated the Director General of the GES to go for the new mode of announcement; the flyer.
Our Research Team had, over the weekend, gathered information from teachers in the school that the school has been starved of funds for almost three years now. We were told that the Headmistress had written a series of letters to the Ghana Education Service, both under the former Director General and the current one, Dr. Eric Nkansah, detailing the challenges the school was facing: lack of furniture, shortage of food for boarding students, no money to buy stationery for office work and examinations, and to maintain school vehicles, among others.
Teachers of the school told our Research Team that about six months ago (somewhere in January 2023), their Headmistress met with the Director General, Dr. Eric Nkansah, at his office to discuss with him how dire the situation was in the school. The Director General, the teachers revealed, promised their Headmistress he was going to intervene. Six months had passed, but Dr. Eric Nkansah failed to extend any assistance to the school.
A source close to the Accounts Department of the School told our Team, that the last time the school received any grant from the GES was somewhere in January 2022, and that was even part of arrears owed the school from 2021. The source revealed that, the arrears owed the school for perishable items alone from 2021 to May 2023, was in excess of three hundred and seventy thousand Ghana cedis (ghc370,000), while computations were being done to know how much government owes the school in other cost areas. In one instance, our sources disclosed that the GES directed the Headmistress to contact the free SHS Secretariat for help. The Secretariat in turn directed the Headmistress to a sister school (was it Ghanata SHS?) who lent her some food items. This borrowed food never lasted beyond a week.
A parent our Team spoke to disclosed that the PTA had stepped in to supply over 360 chairs and tables to SHS1 students because government had failed to provide enough to go round students. Parents have also organised themselves in year groups, and levied themselves to help feed the students because they don’t want their wards to starve.
Instead of the government, through the GES/Ministry of Education showing gratitude to the Headmistress for not exposing government’s failure, by taking charge to mobilise parents to come to the rescue of the school, and for that matter the government, it rather ungratefully interdicted her. What kind of callousness is that? Was Dr. Eric Nkansah and Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum expecting the Headmistress to fold her arms without doing anything, and allow the school to run aground for students to starve or sit on the floor to learn?
Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum had recently accused teachers of producing students who could not think critically and solve problems. He should thus be applauding Headmasters and Headmistresses who are critical thinkers and solving problems government has created by not funding the schools and food suppliers, rather than interdicting them. That amounts to double standards.
4. CURRENT TRENDS IN THE SCHOOLS
With government’s failure to live up to expectations of funding the schools adequately and timeously, the trend in most schools now is that Headmasters and Headmistresses appeal to parents to fill the vacuum. In some schools in Ashanti Region for instance, SHS1 students have been requested to send plastic chairs to school during admission time to sit on in class, duplicating papers and official sheets for their examinations, as well as detergents for cleaning the dormitories. In some others, Heads lay bare their challenges to parents and appeal to them to help.
Quite recently, I attended a meeting of parents of SHS3 students in one of the renowned girls schools in Cape Coast with a cousin. The Headmistress, with a troubled voice, appealed to the parents to assist the school with A-4 duplicating papers, ink and toners, to help the school organise its Mock Examinations for the SHS3 students to prepare them for the WASSCE. She lamented that there could be no examinations if no assistance was received. My cousin, Dr. Theophilus Senyo Ackorlie, in response to the appeal by the Headmistress, sent his driver to me a week later with one hundred packets of A-4 sheets, which I went to donate to the school on his behalf. I believe other parents might have also responded to the appeal and similar ones in other schools.
If a top Grade ‘A’ school could not have money to secure stationery for their examinations because of government’s dereliction of duty, one can imagine the situation in the deprived schools in the country. In all these, the Heads have kept their silence for fear of victimisation.
5. SILENCE OF THE VOICES OF CONSCIENCE
Despite the high handedness, the intolerance and blame shifting by government, the “voices of conscience” – the religious leaders (including Moderators, past and present, of my own Presbyterian Church of Ghana), Chiefs and Queenmothers, the Ghana Bar Association, Ghana Medical Association, and many others, who were cacophonously vociferous in the past under the previous government, have decided to keep absolute silence. They watch the hounds of government bark, snarl, snap and bay at the heels of these Headmasters and Headmistresses at the least opportunity. They have stood aloof, watching our education system take a downward spiral at an alarming speed. They see no evil, hear no evil, and thus, speak no evil, because it is their tribesmen who are in charge of affairs.
Ghana’s “Voices of Conscience,” learn to take sides as you had done in the past. Your refusal to take sides on great moral issues is in itself a decision. It is a silent acquiescence to evil. You told us in the recent past that neutrality helped the oppressor, never the oppressed. The same principles hold as sacred today as in the past. Your loud silence is encouraging the tormentor, never the tormented.
The cry for justice has been left for the Education Sector Unions of GNAT, NAGRAT and CCT. The Headmasters and Headmistresses are too scared to speak out individually for fear of victimisation. The Association they belong to, and who should fight for, and protect them, the Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools (CHASS), has also lost its voice and its venom to bite, leaving the flock without a shepherd.
So, this “monstrous fetish” called free SHS, whose owners have failed to perform the necessary rituals and sacrifices of funding, housed and religiously worshipped in a shrine called the Ghana Education Service, superintended over by a chief priest called Director General, is left loose, to vent its venom on innocent Headmasters and Headmistresses, for its own failings. Indeed, the days of Samuel Ofori Adjei as National President of CHASS are gone, gone never to come again.
One would have thought that Dr. Eric Nkansah, whose legitimacy as Director General of the GES had been questioned by the three teacher unions (for being a “Goro Boy” rather than a professional teacher), would depart from the blame shifting actions of his predecessor and former sector Minister and chart a new path. He has rather escalated the inhumane act and interdicted Headmasters and Headmistresses more than his predecessor. The tradition of sacrificing innocent lambs for the “monstrous fetish” in an attempt to cover up for the failings of the owners of the fetish, rather intensified.
6. CALLS FOR POLICY REVIEW IGNORED
Many Ghanaians have called for a review of the free SHS policy, but the owners of this “monstrous fetish” have turned a stone deaf ear to the calls. Former President, John Dramani Mahama, is one of the eminent citizens who have, at one time or the other, drummed home the urgent need for a review. But the First Gentleman of the nation, H. E. Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo, launched a scathing attack on him, claiming his call for a review means a cancellation of the policy. The President vowed in an address that he was never going to review the policy.
The situation is getting similar to Government’s economic woes and journey to the IMF. Hon. Ato Forson, Member of Parliament for Ajumako – Enyan – Essiam, kept preaching to the government to quickly turn to the IMF for assistance or risk going later in an ambulance. It was a prophecy that had come to pass.
Perhaps, the government is re-enacting the Deputy Minister of Finance, Hon. John Kumah’s drama on the floor of Parliament: We are not revising the free SHS today, we are not revising the free SHS tomorrow, and we are not revising the free SHS as long as the NPP remains in power. Or is it rather the Minister of Finance, Hon. Ken Ofori Atta, that we are mimicking, that we are not going to review the free SHS, no matter what we do, we are not reviewing it, we are a proud people, we have the resources, and we are not men of little faith? Should we continue to live in this situation, Ghana’s free SHS will go to the Review Theatre on a stretcher, as noted by Kwabena Agyapong, on Ghana going to the IMF, in his recent campaign launch.
7. ADDRESSING THE CHALLENGES
Our Team proposes a three-tier radical approach to addressing the funding challenges the free SHS is confronted with.
i) Review the Free SHS Policy
Government must listen to the numerous voices calling for a review of the free SHS policy. For now, most NPP members and government appointees are afraid to openly speak in support of the review, though they speak privately in favour of it. This is because the President had openly declared that there would never be a review. The Minister of Information, Hon. Kojo Oppong Nkrumah recently told the whole nation after the country had gone to the IMF on a stretcher, that every flagship policy or programme of the government was on the table for review, including the free SHS. This was also earlier revealed by the former Director General of the GES, Prof. Kwasi Opoku Amankwa, who was later forced by his sector Ministry to withdraw his statement and apologise. Less than a week after that announcement by the Minister of Information of a possible review of the free SHS policy, government issued a statement embarrassing its own official spokesman by denouncing what he told Ghanaians. These inconsistent posturing of the government on the review of the free SHS policy has left NPP and other government officials confused and afraid to talk.
H. E. Nana Akufo Addo should be bold enough as he did in the case of going to the IMF, to announce a review of the policy. This will kill the fears harboured by key government elements to be able to join the rest of the population to bring out their proposals for a review.
If parents should be allowed to burden share the cost of feeding, or uniforms, or stationery, etc, the yoke might be a little lighter for government to carry. As it is now, it is like the proverbial “Konongo Kaya” who is unable to carry the load but would not allow anyone also to carry it.
Alternatively, arrangements for food supply could be reviewed by eliminating the middle men and women and allow Heads of School to secure their own food items for their schools. The alternatives are many; the President should just officially denounce his earlier objection to a review and we shall see how ideas will flood the system.
ii) Heads of Schools should Stop Stressing Themselves Until the President and his government announce a review of the policy, we entreat all our indefatigable Headmasters and Headmistresses to stop stressing up themselves to save the government of its failings. My colleagues, didn’t you watch the Binduri SHS students recently? Ahaaa, “Binduririse” the system! If the government fails to bring food to feed students, don’t stress up yourself. Fold your arms and tell your students there is no food. When the students riot and curse the President, and insult those he appointed to address your challenges, they will gallop to your schools and bring you food as we witnessed in Binduri SHS recently.
If there is no money to pay water and electricity bills, let your students stay without light and without bathing. They will riot, insult and curse those visiting the hardship upon them, and you will see them running to your schools to solve your problems. And if there is no furniture for students to sit on to learn, oh my dear colleagues, don’t appeal to parents to assist. Let the students lie on the floor to write. When they cross their tolerant levels, they will do what they know best and the education authorities will rush to your assistance.
It is unsafe, even totally unwise, to continue doing your best to cover up for government’s failings on the free SHS due to poor implementation. They will continue to tarnish your reputation. You will risk losing your job as well.
iii) PTAs Should Take Their Hands Off the Schools
Parents should, as a matter of urgency, stop levying themselves to solve problems created by the government in the schools. Afterall, you have been outlawed as PTAs in the schools by the same government. Your involvement in the schools are thus illegal. All the cases of interdiction of Heads are linked to parents mobilising resources to provide for their wards, which is eventually blamed on the Heads of School as unauthorized collection of fees. Support your wards individually as much as you can in terms of food, stationery, health, etc.
I have a ward in a Senior High School, but I have never contributed any levy to my year PTA group, and I will never contribute. This is not because I don’t love my Headmaster. On the contrary, I do. I declined contributing for two reasons.
Firstly, I don’t want my assistance to the school through the PTA to lead my Colleague Headmaster into temptation when I can not deliver him from evil. If my contribution to the PTA will lead to his interdiction, it is better I protect him by not contributing. At the center of it all, it is my colleague Headmasters that I am concerned about.
Secondly, I am uncomfortable helping a government to solve its funding challenges which it does not, and will not, appreciate, but which it will rather use to interdict my colleagues. It is as though the government is determined to, at all cost, find fault to cover its failures, so they will even accuse a snail of over speeding. Ingratitude by government to Headmasters is making government look like an animal, or even worse, because some animals have a way of saying thank you when you do them a favour.
8. CONCLUSION
We admonish the Director General (DG) of the GES, Dr. Eric Nkansah, to pull the brakes on these unnecessary interdictions. DG, there is no doubt that you are under pressure to please your political masters and benefactors. But that is where your professionalism comes in. Failure to apply your professionalism only goes to prove the “Goro Boy” label given you by the Teacher Unions. Tell the powers pushing you the truth and if the truth shall kill them, let them die. Tell them that it is their failure to provide you with adequate resources to implement the free SHS policy that is pushing parents to fill the void, which they term as “unauthorised fees.” Yes, Dr. Eric Nkansah, tell them. Truth is like a lion, you don’t need to defend it. Let it loose, it will defend itself.
The only time your predecessor, Prof. Kwasi Opoku Amankwa, realised what injustice is, was when it visited him. I pray that cup passes you by during your tenure. But my wishes are not horses that beggars could ride. To understand the stress under which your Headmasters and Headmistresses are working without timeous adequate resources, you must swim in the same turbulent water that is drowning them, not in the calm waters of the swimming pool the politicians are cooling off themselves in. The evil you support today because of the transient benefit you stand to gain, will definitely be the fertilizer that might nurture your vicissitude in the future. Remember that the cane that was used to lash Takyi is anxiously resting against the wall waiting for Baah. When you reach that nightmarish stage, where the centre can no longer hold, and the falcon can not hear the falconer, you might be forced to guzzle from the chalice that you helped poison in your inordinate adventure to please your non – professional political powers.
To my colleague Headmasters, keep on doing the best for Mother Ghana. But protect yourselves from these ravaging wolves by not allowing any PTAs to lead you into temptation by mobilising funds among themselves. Your glory will find you even in the slums. Your destiny can not be imprisoned, shattered or dismissed by anyone. The universe will give you tests, but once you learn your lessons and master your light, your true season will visit you, fetch you, and crown you. Your grace shall know no bounds. Peace be upon you, my brethren.
ADDENDUM
The 2023 WASSCE begins on 31st July 2023, with the Practicals. WAEC is currently going round distributing the Practical Papers to the schools. May I know when WAEC is going to pay the invigilators and supervisors the fees for last year (2022) invigilation
My colleague teachers, are you going to invigilate the 2023 WASSCE without the payment for the 2022 invigilation?
These are harmless questions o. But I need answers.