NAGRAT President Questions Need for Free SHS Legislation

The President of the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), Angel Carbonu, has expressed surprise over the sudden interest by the Majority in Parliament to introduce legislation to make the Free Senior High School (SHS) policy.

According to Mr. Carbonu of NAGRAT,  there is no clear justification for this legislation, as no one has raised any objections or questioned the legality of the Free SHS policy.

“I have not heard anybody, civil society, media, unions, political organisation, I have not heard anybody condemning the Free Senior High School and I have also not heard anybody boldly come to say that the Free Senior High School should be abolished.

What I have heard people say is to critic the functionality of the programme as it is now and question whether resources are adequately and timeously being sent to the institutions for effective teaching and learning to take place,” he explained.

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In an interview on Top Story, Mr. Carbonu argued that the government should focus on addressing the challenges in implementing the Free SHS program rather than introducing legislation that may create unnecessary chaos.

“What is needed is to identify the challenges in the implementation of the Free Senior High School programme… One major challenge is the scale in terms of resource allocation tilting heavily in favor of feeding, against the provision of physical infrastructure, and also teaching and learning materials, creating a congenial environment for teaching and learning to take place.

And if we continue like this, we are pushing money to feed children in school and we are compromising the provision of what is necessary for the purpose for which the child is in school; that is teaching and learning,” he said.

Mr. Carbonu believes that this move is unnecessary and may create chaos. “For us to be told right now that at right now that is going to Parliament to see whether the opposition parliament is going to raise an objection to create a political cacophony once again on a very important issue, begs the salient issues that are being raised on this basis,” he said.

The Majority Leader, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, had announced earlier that a finalised bill is ready for presentation by the Education Minister to make the Free SHS policy binding on successive governments.

He indicated that “If we consider it [Free SHS bill] as a House, what that means is that it becomes mandatory for governments to implement this.”

“Unless it is repealed, no government would have the right to say, I am not going to enforce Free SHS because now it is law, so if you fail, a citizen can apply to the court as his bona fide and the court can exact justice in that citizen’s favor,” he said.

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