A letter to Akufo-Addo on Free SHS and Ghana Beyond Aid

Your Excellency,

I write to you about Free SHS and Ghana Beyond Aid.

Thank you, Your Excellency, for your leadership in our collective effort to educate the sons and daughters of this blessed, prosperous, great and strong nation; Ghana.

The free SHS policy is an excellent policy, and there is no better time to implement this great vision. Yes, the time to educate our nation is now. Not tomorrow, not in the sweet by-and-by, but right now.

In light of the current challenge of inadequate infrastructure, I write to share arguments in support of IMANI Ghana’s recent advice on the issue published in the media on 23rd July 2018, on Joy News.

They suggested that your administration, and indeed all administrations, should solve this problem of infrastructure and congestion by first using space in private (decentralized) senior high schools.

Your Excellency, this is a better solution and here’s why:

Your Excellency would agree that we as a people are all in this together, we have to be. Private sector and public sector, together. These decentralized senior high schools, which have been built, developed and managed by private citizens have enough spaces to meet the current need.

Patriots are the development partner that we desperately need and currently seek.

These patriots have already gone for loans and have invested heavily in senior high school infrastructure.

Our resources as a nation consists of both what is managed by public administrators, and also what is managed by private enterprises. Public administrators, anywhere in the world, cannot solve the problems alone.

The good news is that these patriots in the private (decentralized) senior high schools have not closed their doors on us. They are willing to work with any administration to solve the problems in our senior high school sector, just as they have done over the years in the basic school sector.

Your Excellency, you are an inspiration to all of us here at home, and many all around the world. Just as you have kept saying in your words and in your deeds, the solutions we seek are inside and among us as a people. These solutions are not beyond us, no, they are not outside of ourselves. We are well able as a people. We need to trust in God, and believe in the strengths of one another, as a people led by God.

It would be hard to explain why we would sideline patriots, who have made huge investments in our country and have demonstrated the willingness to work. It would be unthinkable that we would not employ resources that our citizens have generated and developed, with little more than grit and determination. It would be a blight to humanity that we would go begging for and borrowing resources that we already own.

The right thing to do is for us to prudently use all of our resources as a nation. This includes the resources generated by our hardworking sons, daughters, mothers and fathers; Patriots.

Indeed, the double track system is actually a more suited solution for another problem in our education; Practicality.

This double track system can be introduced for students to go through apprenticeships, fieldwork, practical training and community service. This would give students the opportunity to gain practical, useful, employable knowledge and skills as they go through their senior high school program. Our country records amongst the highest unemployment rates of 15 - 25-year-olds anywhere in the world. This could very well be a good proposition to address this other pressing challenge.

But first, let us solve the problem of space.

Let us use the space in private (decentralized) schools. Let us not burden ourselves, as a nation, with unnecessary debt and interest payments. We already have to finance the free program itself.

Let us first look internally for our solutions, because we ourselves are the solution we seek. Our citizens and patriots are our most important development partners.

Indeed, Ghana Beyond Aid is possible and can begin right here, right now.

I pray that the Spirit of God will lead and guide this nation in all wisdom and understanding, to continually make the right choices, in accordance with God’s will and purposes.

Thank you.

Credit: John Boateng Afrane | theabjohn@gmail.com