Akufo-Addo Justifies Increase In Budget Allocation To Free SHS Despite Economic Challenges

President Akufo-Addo has justified the government’s decision to increase investment in its Free Senior High School policy, despite country’s economic challenges. He says the policy has proven more impactful than what existed previously, based on the performance of free SHS beneficiaries in the last two West Africa Secondary

Schools Certificate Examination (WASSCE). The 2022 WASSCE results of the third batch of Free SHS graduates shows 60.39 percent of students recording A1-C6 in English as opposed to 51.6 percent in 2016. 62.5 percent recording A1 to C6 in Integrated Science in the 2022 as opposed to 48.35 percent in 2016 with this year’s results

being a slight regression from the 2021 pass rate of 65.7 percent, he said. Akufo-Addo who was speaking at the 70th Anniversary of Opoku Ware School in the Kumasi further enumerated that, 61.39 percent recorded A1 to C6 in Mathematics as compared to 33.12 percent in 2016 and 71.5 percent recorded A1 to C6 in the Social

Studies as compared to 54.5 percent in 2016. Lest we forget the 2021 batch of students who also obtained very commendable results were the pioneers of the double track system which elicit a lot of vilification and unfounded criticism on its introduction. According to the President, the pass rate in the free SHS era has realized systematic improvement over the pre Free SHS era with the 2022 results being the best in eight years. For this

reason, the President believes the Free SHS has been very successful with 1.3 million children benefitting from the policy which comes with its own challenges. There have been challenges associated with this policy which government has addressed substantially; many of them and there will be more in the course of time, such is the nature of social evolutions so that at every stage the challenges will be met, he added.