Free SHS at last

‘Nothing will be done at all if a man waited until he could do it so well that no man could find fault with it’. — Cardinal Newman

The legendary Nelson Mandela has noted that “it always seems impossible until it is done”. How true is this about the promise of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to introduce a Free Senior High School (SHS) Policy? Indeed, when the idea was expounded in the 2012 presidential campaign, some imputed fraud to Nana because it was never possible to pursue such a policy. There were even advertisements to prove the contrary.

But just as Brian Tracy has said, “As long as you keep your mind clearly focused on the goal that you want to accomplish, you will achieve that goal”. Today, the policy has become a reality and the first batch of beneficiaries are the best testimonials as to whether the promise was real or a hoax. It is indeed gratifying that for the first time, parents are not burdened with the payment of huge school fees as their children enter SHS for the first time. More important, the countless number of children who were denied SHS education because their parents could not afford the fees, now have the opportunity to enjoy it.

A journey of a thousand miles, it has always been argued, begins with the first step. Thus Ghana, under President Nana Akufo-Addo, has taken the first step of providing free SHS education. Nana Akufo-Addo must be motivated by David Viscott who asserts that “if you have the courage to begin, you have the courage to succeed”.

Despite all the criticism, beginning with the fact that anybody who promised free SHS was perpetrating a hoax on our people through the commentary but that it would take us another generation to think of such a policy, now the argument has moved into the realm of discrimination on the grounds that continuing students have been denied access to free SHS education. Sometimes it appears the policy was developed by those who are criticising it and that those who are implementing it do not know the genesis of the programme.

For me, the government must not be deterred but get focused because as Robert H. Schuler has postulated, “Press on. Obstacles are seldom the same size tomorrow as they are today.” Once we have started the implementation of the Free SHS Policy, we must never look back. We must measure our steps and keep steadily moving forward, because as George Bernard Shaw encourages us, “In a battle, all you need to make you fight is a little hot blood in the knowledge that it is more dangerous to lose than to win.”

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As for the argument that it is serving only the first-year students, it begs the question. It could well be extended to suggest that every student must be admitted into boarding school because it is discriminatory to pay for boarding fees of some and not all students. It could even be stretched to an absurd level to suggest that the existing Northern Scholarship Scheme is unlawful because it favours children from some geographic areas as against others. We could even go into history and say that the policy that ensured that Sixth Form students enjoyed scholarship while those from Form One to Five paid fees was discriminatory.

We must understand that for as long as we are human, and for as long as society is dynamic, we would have to live within constraints and limitations. If as a people we mean well and see the Free SHS Policy as worthy and edifying, we must join hands and work towards finding means of making it sustainable and enduring. Indeed, we must realise that the Free SHS Policy has come to stay.

In this wise, I would want to counsel that we refrain from attributing all the difficulties that have cropped up with the processes leading to the admission of the first batch of beneficiaries as a concomitant of the policy. In 2012, I was at Akwatia as part of the process of getting admission for my daughter. Free SHS was not on the floor. However, I saw how parents fretted and laboured to get their children through the admission process before they could even pay fees. We had to pay the fees before we could access prospectus.

The problem of misplacement of students, including boys or girls being placed in exclusively boys or girls schools is not new, except that it is an indictment on us whether pupils accidentally make the selection or the computer overlooks the problem.

What is imperative is that we must resolve all the difficulties that arise as we begin yet another journey that in a few years will transform our country beyond description. We dare not fail.