Free SHS policy without my support will collapse – Akua Donkor Claims
The founder and leader of the Ghana Freedom Party (GFP), Akua Donkor is predicting a collapse of the flagship Free SHS policy of the Akufo-Addo led government.
According to her, she owns the intellectual property of the Free Senior High School policy thus knows how to make it sustainable.
The failed presidential candidate on Accra-based Neat FM claimed the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) stole her idea when she was prevented from contesting the elections by Chairperson of the Electoral Commission, Charlotte Osei.
“Nana Addo and his cohorts stole the free SHS policy from me in the 2016 elections and now he is implementing it. I can state authoritatively that this policy will not see the day of light. It will not work because it was stolen from me” she added.
Akua Donkor’s comment follows the launch of the much-anticipated education policy on the premises of the West Africa Senior School, Adentan, Accra.
Parents of over 400,000 students entering senior high school for the first time after qualifying from the junior high level, have been relieved of the burden of funding the education of their children at the senior high level as the government rolls out the programme this academic year.
President Akufo-Addo urged Ghanaians to embrace the policy and support it to succeed, maintaining that: “The policy is not about the NPP or the NDC; the beneficiaries will not only be NPP sympathisers; they will be Ghanaians”.
But Akua Donkor has joined skeptics who have bet their last dollar that the free SHS policy will collapse.
The reason, she noted is because the government has not told Ghanaians how it intends to fund the policy.
The GFP leader noted that her concern has had to do with what they call a shift from the campaign promise of providing free education to all SHS students to just first-year students.
The only way the policy will work, Akua Donkor noted is for the government to include her int the implementation process.
The outspoken politician who is confident of winning the 2020 general elections said she will implement free education from kindergarten to SHS.
‘Nana Addo should make Kindergarten and primary free first and then focus on SHS because I will make sure I make education free for all pupils because I am sure of becoming President in 2020’ she noted.
