Critics are not saboteurs

Challenges are good. They provide an excellent opportunity for initiatives to be refined and made better. This is my approach to many things – including the free Senior High School (SHS) policy.

A lot of the commentary that has been passed about the initiative. Some are clearly not justified. Some are very justified.

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And for the records, it doesn’t matter if the children of the government officials are not themselves beneficiaries of the initiative. There are better ways of evaluating the effectiveness and impact of the free SHS policy.

The free SHS policy will definitely be fraught with problems. There is no initiative in this world without problems. There will be problems with getting people to buy into the initiative. There will be problems in implementation. There will be problem managing and maintaining the policy.

There will also be problems expanding the coverage of the policy. There will be problems in refining the initiative. So the fact that the initiative is suffering some hiccups does not mean that we should throw our hands up in the air and tear the initiative apart.

We need to be alive to the challenges. A lot has been said about the recent spate of deaths in some SHSs across the country. The causes of those deaths are varied. Some preliminary research pin point H1N1 virus and swine flu.

The Ghana Health Service has come out to say that the congestion in the various schools is responsible for the spread of these viruses and death.

According to the Head of the Disease and Surveillance Unit of the Ghana Health Service, congestion at the various senior high schools is a serious risk factor.

Some images of the implementation of the free SHS programme have been making the rounds for sometime now. And to be frank, they are not flattering at all. There are serious implementation challenges which should be addressed.

In specific reference to overcrowding, we have seen so many images of these. In fact, without the free SHS programme, overcrowding was a problem.

It is common knowledge that not every student in senior high school has the privilege of sleeping on a bed. Some spend the night sleeping on their trunks, if not on the floor. It is common knowledge that there is an infrastructure deficit in the various SHSs across the country.

So when a link is drawn between the free SHS initiative and congestion leading to the spread of diseases, it is utterly unfair for anyone to accuse those drawing the link between the two as being saboteurs.

Indeed, those defending the way things are being run currently are rather the saboteurs in this context. Their continued support of the initiative is equivalent to singing the praise of a ship whiles it sinks. We must be sensible. We must be aware and alive to criticisms.

And while at it, we must not blur the difference between a critic and a saboteur. The difference between the two is wide off that it is surprising that some are able to confuse the two.

A saboteur is the one who steals the money meant to be used for the initiative. A saboteur is the one who steals food items home. A saboteur is the one who does everything possible under the earth to discredit an initiative through negative and poisonous conduct.

A saboteur does not come anywhere close to a critic who according to the Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary is “a person who expresses disapproval of somebody or something and talks about their bad qualities, especially publicly.” The difference must not be lost on us.

People should feel free to criticise. Indeed, people should be encouraged to criticise. That is the only way that the programme can become better.

It is utterly reprehensible and unfortunate for anyone to suggest that a person is a saboteur simply because the person criticises an initiative. That is most unfortunate. And it is a relic of the past that we must actively shred.

We don’t need the World Health Organisation to tell us that decongestion is likely or in fact most likely to cause some health challenges.

And the government must take note. If there is anyone being a saboteur in this context, then it is clearly the sycophants in government who cannot afford to look at the powers that be in the eyes and tell them the truth.

The free SHS initiative is a good one. In fact, it is very laudable. Those implementing it are not likely to get it right on the first try. There will be a lot of learning and fine tuning that must and will be done.

Criticisms are not necessarily pleasant. But we must take them in. And while we do, let us bear in mind that critics are not saboteurs.