Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo presented his policies for possible election in this year's general election at the IEA forum. It was an important occasion because Nana starts this race with a 50% chance of becoming President. We all therefore need to review the policies presented in a non-partisan manner and focused on the future and interest of the country, Ghana. Nana's focus on SHS was both strategic and populist. Nobody can say he said nothing (As PNC's Ayariga were accused of) and we will be debating this for sometime at least. In terms of the substance of the policy, the arguments against, which has focused on costs and unrealism, will have to note also the dreams of many Ghanaians for more ambition and visionary leadership from our politicians. Simply put; if it is possible, in any way, then we should do it. The Ghana Advancement Movement (GAM) therefore holds the view that the argument needs to move on from that of possible or not. It is possible, full stop. We however argue at this point that this Free SHS policy is going to entrench a creeping policy direction that could bring us to rather worse ends as a country than we intended. The Free SHS, together with such policies such as School Feeding and Free School Uniforms are introducing a cloud of displacement and deadweight in the natural order of Ghana's educational system. Probably, the earlier we tell our politicians to put a stop to this, the better for the future of the children of Ghana and other sectors of our fledging economy. Let’s define the terms Displacement & Deadweight a bit. Displacement in public policy analysis means that an action, though probably beneficial, comes in place of an already existing action that has not been absolutely proven not to work; while Deadweight means that policy actions do not have the desired impact despite an appearance of being important. Where is the role of parents in the economic and social system if government is allocating so many roles to itself? Is government better at providing these things than parents and should we not be looking at the source of the problem, i.e. no jobs and lowly paid jobs? What will Ghanaians prefer; to have good jobs that will mean they can cater for their children’s education or for government to take ALL (We cannot be sure of this) of the costs of educating the child to SHS level? What is the opportunity cost of Free SHS because in reality nothing from government is ‘free’? Lesotho (Nana’s country of comparison) spends 12% of its GDP on education and has high literacy rates at 85%. Even then, primary education is now increasingly free; High School is not. Also, Lesotho has serious problems in healthcare, transportation and educational resources, with only about 4% of the population using the internet. Will more people speaking ‘SHS English’ actually transform Ghana? Nana’s source of funding for the Free SHS will directly affect the Ghana National Petroleum Company, the GETFund and all projects currently being undertaken with our oil revenues. How is that worthwhile? What can we do NOW to say with some certainty that forfeiting these projects can be justified by graduating hundreds of thousands of SHS graduates every year? Though Free SHS means every Ghanaian Child will get to be educated to SHS level it doesn't assure them of jobs and a better life. It rather promises more competition for non-existent jobs. To conclude, Nana’s Free SHS policy is possible; but it is piecemeal; there is little evidence that it will result in better lives and it could impact negatively on other sectors of the economy. We believe that Governments must do what Governments alone can do. In Ghana, they are hardly able to do that well enough so when they also venture into such ‘fairytale’ lands, we are better off leaving them alone. Author : Prince Abbey Email: pabbeygh@yahoo.com Website: http://www.facebook.com/GhanaAdvancementMovement