Free SHS is a good policy. It is enshrined in Article 25b of Ghana’s 1992 constitution which was approved by way of a referendum on 28th April 1992 with the set-out schedule becoming law on January 7^th 1993 which only had the NDC in that chamber on 7^th January 1993 after the NPP had boycotted parliament.

We need to jealously guard the Free SHS, and all academic like myself must guard it with honest presentation of facts.

The failure of the present NPP government to acknowledge the challenges of the Free SHS and the gagging of any other voice that seeks to contribute to shaping the improvement of the policy is one that is akin to an authoritarian posture. Despite the successes of the policy, not everything is right with the policy and as academics and stakeholders in education, we have a duty to defend this policy which has come to stay using truth and evidence-based communication.

With a posture of see no wrong hear no wrong with this policy, the future of the policy remains challenged at least in respect of its funding and sustainability spheres. This is why any alternative suggestion to have a dedicated legislated funding stream for the Free SHS is not only spot on but very timely and should be where greater attention should be for all Ghanaians.

Any narrative that suggests any of the political party flagbearers will cancel the policy because of his proposed review should therefore be received with all the contempt it deserves, such persons viewed as being only dishonest and very unprincipled person(s) because review can never at any material time mean cancellation.

The policy surely requires a review with the view to improving it, making, decentralization the food provision, having designated funding stream and making teachers and parents have a say in how our schools are managed.

Another critical dimension to the discourse on the Free SHS is the exact impact by way of educational access that Free SHS has made. The question of how much has been spent actually is a domain I will shelve for another time. The questions that all Ghanaians must ask are

1. How many BECE graduates (Ghanaian children) have actually benefitted from the Free SHS.
2. Is the ruling NPP governments advert on the 5 million numbers enrolled a deception number or real?
3. Are the numbers deliberately bloated so that government would use that as a smokescreen to justify the amount it claims to have spent on our children?
4. If the numbers are nowhere near even 4 million children, why should an academic Vice president with a PhD lie with our national statistics and National Data. Why should a PhD education Minister sit unperturbed for such lies and data deception continue when he is the supervising Minister?
5. Why is the NDC running Mate, a Professor and an Educationist not challenging the numbers being churned out and allowing these lies to thrive
6. Where are our educational and academic stewards and why are they mouth-tight with this ongoing deliberate lie on our national data of  importance such as this?
7.  How does this development help with planning and with researchers seeking to use credible data from state institutions for research

Let me indicate that it is dishonesty and irredeemably unacademic for such lies, deception and dishonesty to continue. If our moral community do not care about the continued accommodation of deceptive leaders, chronic liars and deliberate falsehood peddlers for political power, then we all ought to shut our churches, mosque and shrines so we follow our passion, desires without any religious restraint. Where is the Moral Vision of the country?

In the light of this, I throw light on what exactly the data should look like and nothing close to the over 5 million Ghanaians that the New Patriotic Party have been peddling about and even advertising same. I present the total number of students who sat for the BECE exams for the various years since the Free SHS policy commenced.

Table 1: Total pupils who actually sat for or wrote BECE exams since Free SHS introduction in 2017

Year	Number who sat for both private and public Candidate Exams
Sept 2017	468,060
2018	509,827
2019	517,331
2020	531,707
2021	572,167
2022	552,288
2023	600,714
2024	569,236
Total who sat for exams in 8 years	3,803,999
Number of students who did not qualify to enroll for SHS for 2017 to 2019**(3 years)	117,441
Estimated Yearly average of students who do not qualify to enroll in Secondary School  2020 to 2024(5 years×39,147)	195,735
Total Eligible BECE students to enroll into SHS less of 2017-2019 non qualified students	3,686,558
Total Eligible students to enroll in SHS less of 2020-2024 non qualified students	3,490,823
Actual enrolled 88% all eligible BECE graduates enrolled for SHS due to FSHS	3,071,924

**Average of 39,147 BECE students either do not pass or get their full results cancelled or for one reason or other do not qualify and are not eligible to get enrolled in Secondary School Every Year using data from 2017

As presented in Table 1, we know that even if every Ghanaian child who sat for BECE both school and private exam were to attend secondary school by way of Free SHS, the number would not even reach 4 million. It is therefore very deceptive, simply lies and unhealthy for anybody to quote 5.7 million or 5 million numbers FSHS beneficiaries. Where does the nearly 2.5 million children come from or the 1.76 million children come from? It is important to note that not all the pupils who sit for the exams Even if 94% of the students enroll for the FSHS, this would still not reach even 4 million students.

However, the evidence from the NPP own tracker shows as at 2023, as indicated here http://performancetracker.gov.gh/metrics/821,  88% of all pupils who write the BECE exams are placed to enjoy secondary education as opposed to 2016 when the percentage was 73.5%. which had moved from 72.2%. reflecting a 1.3% reduction in unenrolled qualified BECE graduates eligible to enroll in Secondary School.

This suggest a natural/nomalised decline in the unenrolled eligible BECE graduates suggesting an improvement in the number of qualified students who would have enrolled in secondary school from 2015 towards 2016 and into the subsequent years without the effect of Free SHS. On trend analysis, a yearly increase in the number of eligible BECE graduates to SHS by 1.2% would have a nominal year on year net increase by 9.6% assuming the increase were static (1.2%*8 years) resulting in the percentage of enrolled BECE graduate to SHS reaching 83.1%. in 2024. The difference in percentage enrollment between the effect of FSHS and what would normally have happened without FSHS is 4.9% increase in access – A commendable feat.

More to that, not all the BECE students who sat for the exams qualified to enroll for the Free SHS programme either because they either failed entirely or had their results cancelled or for other reasons. An illustration is where in 2017, 420,135 sat for the BECE exams but 36,836 students did not pass, and in 2018 486,641 pupils passed while 23,186 pupils did not pass while in 2019 459,912 passed while 57,419 pupils did not pass(https://www.researchgate.net/profile/RonaldMensah/publication/364815324/figure/tbl1/AS:11431281092649426@1666933956623/Trend-of-enrollment-at-secondary Education-2015-2019.png.

These data suggest that for the years 2017,2018 and 2019 alone, a total of 117,441 of pupils who sat for BECE did not qualify for SHS and would certainly not be eligible to benefit from Free SHS policy.

In all, 195,735 is the estimated number of pupils who would not be eligible to enroll in SHS between 2020 and 2024 informed by the available data from the total numbers who sat for the BECE exams in 2017 to 2019.

If we discount a yearly average of 39,147 BECE students who either do not pass or get their full results cancelled or for one reason or other do not qualify and are not eligible to get enrolled in Secondary School Every Year using data from 2017. The total eligible students to benefit from FSHS would now stand at 3,490,823

With a present 88% of all students enrolled into Secondary/Technical Education reported to have benefitted from Free SHS as indicated on the NPP tracker, the actual number of Free SHS beneficiary totals 3,071,924 and not anywhere closer to 5,000,000 Ghanaian children or the 5,700,000 million falsehoods being churned out.

The deliberate churning out of this number could only mean that there must have been a plan to use the fictitious 5 million +number to compute some financial or budgetary allocation unknown to Ghanaian people other than that, Ghanaians need a further explanation why this deliberate lies and deception with FSHS  data.

In conclusion, the analysis suggests that if not for Free SHS, using a trend analysis of students who would have actually attended/enrolled into secondary education anyway,83.1% of total BECE graduates would have gone ahead to/enroll into attend SHS regardless of  the FSHS policy. The FSHS policy with its reported 88% enrollment percentage has contributed to increasing or fostering an additional net increase of 4.9%. This is commendable and justifies the policy. Greater attention should be on how to secure a dedicated funding source for its sustainability.

The NPP government must cease with from henceforth, the deliberate lies, deception and distortion of the actual numbers on the Free SHS beneficiaries. This does not engender credibility in measuring intervention effects and outcomes. The 5 million or 5.7 million numbers bundied aout as beneficiaries are not supported by any data whatsoever, not from the Education Ministry or WAEC or any other source.

If the strategy is to persistently peddle this lies so the numbers can be used to justify any financial and non-existing expenditure in the near future when accountability is required, then this strategy won’t stand the test of accountability.

The Moral community should start speaking about the politics of lies, deception and deliberate distortion of facts and our national data as it does not help build Ghana into the evidence based development. Politics without principles and leadership without  integrity is Evil and our pastors, Apostles , Imams and Chief Priest must speak against it as a canker to building an enduring Moral Vision

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The author, Dr Christopher Yaw Appiah, is an academic, population health scientist and a Senior Lecturer at the Sociology and Social Work Department, KNUST.  

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