Free SHS Is To Benefit The Poor And Accelerate Ghanas Development Bawumia

The Vice President and presidential candidate of the NPP, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has underscored the significance of the Free Senior High School policy to bridging the gap between the poor and the rich in society as well as accelerating Ghana's development.

The Free SHS policy, introduced by the Akufo-Addo government in 2017, has ensured equal access to secondary education and over 5.7 million children have benefited from this transformative programme.

Speaking in Asante Akyem Central constituency on Saturday as part of his campaign tour of the Ashanti Region, Dr. Bawumia said the NPP had to implement the Free SHS policy to afford the poor and the needy access to secondary education and increase Ghana's literacy rate, which he noted, is key to the development of every country.

"When you look around the world, countries that have developed are countries that have advanced in education. In countries that the rate of education is high, these countries also turn to advance in development.”

"Economics and other fields of study have showed that if a country wants to develop quickly the rate of education must also go up but many of our children could not afford Senior High School education. Children of the rich could attend but many children of the poor could not attend."

"It was a big problem and it was dragging the development of the country back because the children of the poor who could not afford secondary education were more than those who could afford. That was not good for the country's development. That is why we said by the grace of God if we got elected, we would introduce free SHS”, Dr. Bawumia stated.

Dr. Bawumia also recalled that the NPP's decision to introduce the Free SHS policy was vehemently opposed by former President Mahama who described it as impossible.

"When we said that we wanted to introduce free SHS, former President Mahama opposed it and said it was not possible. He said it was 419."