Policy analyst and Vice President of Imani Centre for Policy and Education says the country is putting its elite schools at risk with the implementation of Free Senior High School (SHS) policy.
Kofi Bentil says the development is bad for education in Ghana because every country needs its Ivy League schools.
"Every country needs to protect some institutions and make them institutions of excellence at every level. We should not destroy the Presecs, Wesley Girls, Mfastipim, Holy Child, Ghana National Colleges, and their likes that produced us," he said.
Speaking on Joy FM/MultiTv’s news analysis programme, Newsfile Saturday, he said there is the need to produce more of such elite schools and not destroy them with policies such as the free SHS.
He then enumerated five key elements that President Nana Akufo-Addo's flagship education policy must have to be successful.
Kofi Bentil says the Free Senior high school (SHS) policy should have a strong champion, political commitment by leaders, a competent implementation team, humility to accept errors and to make amends as well as a continuous improvement in the system.
Although the programme is scheduled to take off next week, Mr Bentil explained that the President has to champion it.
“I have sat down to discuss the policy with the President and we were not agreeing but he was forceful enough to say ‘I will do this no matter what. This is what we need in this country and I will find the resources for it’.
“When you get that level of political commitment, there is hope. It is not like civil society coming up with an idea and the political leadership dancing around it, this is their own and they are unified about it to make it succeed," Mr Bentil said.
He said President Akufo-Addo's commitment must serve as a template for all political parties to use in policy implementation if they want to succeed.
Some disgruntled parents and guardians last Tuesday besieged the premises of the Education Ministry to express their frustration over the non-placement of their wards in their preferred schools.
During a visit to the Ministry, Joy News witnessed some unhappy parents with their wards making frantic efforts to get their preferred placement.
Some also complained of their inability to access the placement website.
One parent accused officials of the Computerised School Selection and Placement System (CSSPS) of placing his ward in a day school instead of a boarding school.
He alleged that because of the Government’s Free SHS policy, the ward was placed in a low rated school, which he is not happy about.
“People prefer to pay and send their wards to schools of their choice, we don’t want any free SHS,” another frustrated guardian said.
Some parents insisted that because the Government had already paid for the specified number of students under the policy, it placed them randomly in any school without recourse to their selected schools.
But Mr. Bentil who has been an ardent critic of the Free SHS policy said although he cannot speak to the competence of the team in charge of implementing the programme, "everything I see and hear gives me hope that they are on the right course.”
He said the attitude of the Deputy Education Minister and his humility to admit errors and the preparedness to make amends will take the policy far.
According to him, the policy is important to the entire country, and not only the New Patriotic Party (NPP).
He said the policy may be fraught with problems currently, however, if policy implementers should keep working at it till they get it right.
"Speaking as somebody who started criticising it, I am at a point where there are few things in this country which I will trust politicians on generally, but with Free SHS I think we have the best shot possible to get it right," he said.
Source: myjoyonline.com
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This colonial mentality of segregating people into classes was started by these Europeans in other words an educational Aparteid system to rule the people in their own image ; they started the slave trade and thought blacks were animals who could be sold as commodity with special trading floors in London and New York some years ago ; this dark mentality of segregating people was an attempt to prevent the lower class from competing with the upper class ;the ruling class wanted people to live in their own image whether GOOD or BAD !!!!;if you go to India today the same concept exist with the concept of the lower class upper as the key determinant of ones future; why should this idiotic fante donkey and a full who claims to be a think thank advocate equate these IVY league UNis in the United States to mere Secondary Schools in Ghana; what this full from fante land should understand is that a large percentage of these pupils who attended such schools as AChimota; Adesadel ; Mfatispim and ended up at legon have been the principal cause of Ghanas down fall economically ; look at JJ Rawlings who attended Achimota school and led Ghana into bankruptcy ; most of these educated elite ended up in the civil service and as heads our public services ; AND TODAY LOOK AT THE TOTAL MESS !!!!!WE ALL FIND OUR SELVES ; A FREE EDUCATION AS INITIATED BY KWAME NKRUMAH TO BE CONTINUED BY NANA ADDO WILL ATTEMPT TO RESET THIS SEGREGATION ***barred word*** !!!!!!!!; because a lot of these inmates at these schools are just ULESS !!!!!; they have all these doctrates degrees but Ghana continues to sink and running as a bannna state ; today it is those from lesser school who end uop abroad but do very well academically ; MR BENTAL STOP YOUR APARTEID NUMSENSES !!!!!!
This is equality, Afirmative Action, and should not necessarily trade-off against efficeincy and Quality when is well monitored to redress the shortfalles.Kofi is right, we need to preserve the Adisadel Colleges- my alma mater and must be mentioned here-and the rest, but then, that is the beauty of Democracy in a principled economic space, thus Distribution of ecomic prosperity should uniformly benifit the members of Society irrespective of their circumstances in terms of poverty , gender and what have you. Kudos to the President whose forsight is it to make his people competitive in the global economic space with all his citizenry on board.
How is free she going to destroy the elite schools when the same modalities (B.E.C.E.) used in selecting students previously is being used now. The only difference is that government is going to absorb the cost and can somebody tells me how that will destroy some schools unless i am being told money is has brought those schools to where they are now which is certainly not the case other than that please give us laudable reason for your argument.
You see how the ***barred word*** richmen in the country think, this man want the poor kidz to remain poor becuase their kidz cant compete with the poor ones........God is not like Kofi Bentil
You mean to discredit all other schools apart from the so called prestigious schools and also advance a primitive and demonic agenda of always Subduing the poor. Shaaaaaame on you Mr. Whatever. Thank God on judgement day we are not going to be judged by Ivy school Non. Sense. ***barred word*** ne Ivy schools.
Sometimes is sickening to listen to these kind of so called think tankers if you don't have anything reasonable to say ***barred word***. Your trying so hard to justify your defeated argument that free SHS is not possible now you see your stand shameful being
ARE YOU SAYING THAT THOSE WHO ATTENDED THE SCHOOLS YOU MENTIONED ARE BETTER THAN THE REST? THEY RELY ON "APOR"
Ah this man! The government is trying to make life better for every Ghanaian child and he is thinking about Ivy League/classism. Has he thought about the number of Street kids that the program will eliminate? If your child is smart, let him/her go to real ivy league in the States. Ivy leagues are Universities and not High Schools. It's about time we stop classism! After all, most parents whose kids attend the so called ivy leagues high schools in GH embezzle state funds to support those kids.
:-) :-) :-) :-)@ktz, please what is wrong with what he said?
Another myopic thinking. What at all is wrong with Ghanaian leaders? Anybody wakes up spew out any garbage, and they call themselves think tankers.