Let’s prioritise to gain
It is obvious that as a country, we are still battling with providing minimum requirements of the basic necessities of life, i.e. water, shelter, electricity, etc. And yet, our leaders are in a hurry to implement a ‘supposed’ free SHS education.
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We are confronted with perennial shortage of basic utilities such as water, electricity, fuel. Anytime there are challenges with these utilities, we are happy to apply ad hoc measures to ameliorate the situation, and then go back to sleep, only to wake up the next day to encounter the same problem.
Successive governments have failed to prioritise investments in these key sectors, that is why we are still where we are.
Is this not enough lesson for the current and future governments to learn from? Shouldn’t we address, in a more comprehensive way, the serious challenges confronting our utilities before we pump so much resources into implementing free SHS education.
One is yet to see clearly how the provision of free SHS is a priority in this country, and I believe many people will agree with me on this.
The evidence on the ground rather supports the fact that majority of parents, whether poor or rich, prefer quality education and are willing to sacrifice to ensure that their children get the best of education (including SHS education), no matter the cost.
An unscientific survey I conducted revealed this fact, and I believe any scientific study on this subject might just produce similar results. Improving quality and expanding access to secondary education are key problems we should rather address at this point in time.
The current National Democratic Congress (NDC) government promised in the 2012 elections to concentrate on expanding access and improve the quality of education at the secondary level, which I thought was good . But in a matter of less than 18 months, the same government for whatever reason ( maybe political ), has announced progressive implementation of the policy starting from the 2015/2016 academic year.
The question I ask myself is; what has changed to make us reprioritise free SHS education and are willing to spend so much money to implement it?
Apart from the fact that majority of Ghanaians prefer quality as against free SHS education, are we not missing the opportunity to prioritise the use of our scarce resources?
Even the free concept is neither here nor there because there is nothing free under the sun. But that is a debate for another day.
The burning question is; why are our leaders not able to set the right priorities for our nation? Is it due to lack of vision, lack of patriotism or naked greed? Why can’t we prioritise by spending our scarce resources on solving our water, housing and electricity problems which will give more value to current and future generations?
One is ready to concede that there are competing needs and interests in governance. But, can’t we reduce the waste in the system and use our resources a little judiciously to our benefit?
It was refreshing when the president highlighted patriotism in this years’ State of the Nation Address. One of the ways that our leaders (including the president) can show patriotism is by setting strong priorities for the nation and standing by them no matter the cost.
Otherwise, we will bequeath future generations of this land the unfortunate situation of having to battle with these basic problems: lack of potable water, inadequate affordable public housing, ‘dum sor dum sor’ and the like. At least, Dr Kwame Nkrumah showed us the way, let’s emulate his good example.