A lecturer with Planning Department of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Dr Stephen Takyi says that not every Junior High School (JHS) graduate should benefit from government’s flagship program, Free Senior High School (SHS) except parents contribute to tax.
According to the planner, if this becomes the modality before children will benefit from the Free SHS, parents, and guardians will pay their taxes to enable the government also raise revenue to finance the collapsing policy.
Many Ghanaians have raised concerns on the free SHS policy and drawn the attention of the government to the challenges which come along with it.
Speaking on Otec FM, Dr Takyi said : “Children whose parents honour their tax obligation to the government must be allowed to enjoy free education. By this parents will ensure that they do what is right so their children benefitâ€.
 In 2018, the Free SHS programme was able to enroll almost 400,000 students onto the ‘double-track’ system, a number that exceeded the normal intake capacity of the schools.
Currently, Free SHS is running on a shift system known as the ‘double-track’ school calendar system. The new programme creates a calendar of two semesters in a year for the SHS 1 class containing 81 days per each semester and 41 days of vacation for a sandwich class.
Some students belonging to a particular track stay home for two months while the other track remains in school – typically different from the three terms the country has known for years
The situation is expected to end in some years after the government is able to provide enough infrastructure and other teaching and learning materials for the schools that run on the double-track system.
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