The choice of motto for institutions, organisations and flagship programmes are meant to communicate to the larger populace what that institution, organization or programme stands for. So our institution IFEST uses the tagline “Driving innovation through research”. My university, the University of Cape Coast uses “Veritas Nobis Lumen” translated “Truth, Our Guide” and in my alma mater, Oda secondary school, we have “Knowledge Truth and Service”. The essence of these dictums is to signify the philosophy of these institutions. It will therefore be completely out of place if the “modus operandi” of these noble institutions deviates from what their motto says. It is against this background that I have reservations about the tagline of the free SHS policy and how it is being implemented.

 The free SHS logo was launched with the broad themes of Access, Equity and Quality. The import of this tagline to me is that, this policy is meant to ensure access to secondary education in Ghana, to ensure equity in our secondary education system and more importantly to achieve the global focus of quality education in senior high schools in Ghana. These are very brilliant and significant themes that should truly underpin the philosophy of our educational system in Ghana. But the question is, does the manner in which we are implementing the free SHS policy fall in line with these three themes? I will try to answer this in the subsequent paragraphs.

Access to education is one of the problems of education around the globe. The Education For All (EFA) movement led by UNESCO which aimed at meeting the learning needs of all children, youth and adults by 2015 was not met. Although this was not achieved, it tells us that efforts are being made all over the world to improve access to education. Therefore, the two components of accessibility which are affordability and infrastructure should always be the starting point. From the contributions of various governments over the years, the number of senior high schools increased from 720 (2010/11 academic year) to 872 (2015/16 academic year) (ESPR, 2016). The current government has also committed to continue on-going SHS projects, upgrade 42 SHS into Model schools and construct new public schools where necessary. All these are measures aimed at increasing access in the area of infrastructure. In terms of affordability, the government is absorbing all fees to be paid by first years entering SHS this academic year except PTA dues. It is important to note that, over the past four years (2013 – 2016) an average of 27.3% of students who were placed by the Computerised School Selection and Placement System (CSSPS) did not enroll. This can be attributed to the problem of access. So the answer to the question of access is YES, we are on the course in improving access with the introduction of the Free SHS policy.

In literature, there has been a lot of contention over the use of the twin words, Equity and Equality. It must be stated that, equity is completely different from equality. Most policy analyst see equity to be a process that leads to equality. To them, “equity is the process; equality is the outcome”. To Mann (2014), the difference between equity and equality lies in these two questions.

1. Should each student be paid the same amount of money as fees for the academic year?
2. Should payment of fees for the academic year be on needs basis so that those who come from poor background gets more to enable them catch up?

The first question is a question of equality and that’s exactly what we are implementing. The second question is a question of equity and that what IFEST and other civil society organisations in the education sector have called for. Research have also shown that, education is one of the important variables that can be used to bridge the gap of inequality. Thus, according to UNESCO, one extra year of education is associated with a reduction of the Gini coefficient by 1.4 percentage points. It is therefore not surprising that, UNESCO has held that the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) rest on education.

It is based on this, that I feel the mode of implementing the free SHS policy and the theme of Equity is a complete mismatch. What we are doing according to the Ministry of Education is absorbing all the fees for all students irrespective of their background and that, in my opinion, is Equality. To achieve equity, the Ministry of Education (MoE) as well as the Ghana Education Service (GES) should make conscious efforts to separate those who really need a total scholarship from those who can afford part or all of the fees. There are various modes that can be applied to do this segregation. This includes means test, collating background information of pupils when they are registering for BECE among others. The MoE and GES can then rely on these information to offer full scholarship to some students and assist others partially. That is walking the path of EQUITY. Before you raise the issue of complexity, let me inform you that, currently under the Secondary Education Improvement Project (SEIP) by the World Bank, there is a component which has offered scholarship packages to 10,400 students from low-income families (60% girls). My question is, how were these students selected? If we are currently doing this which was originally supposed to end in 2019 but have even been extended to 2021, why can’t we apply the same method to ensure EQUITY since that is what we seek to achieve and not EQUALITY.

Quality Education! Quality Education! Quality Education! I dare say this is one of the most abused terms in the literature of educational policy. In 2014, I led a team to investigate the issues of Quality Basic Education in Ghana. The study which was a grant received through ERNWACA from the Swiss government was carried out by Dr. Oppong Adabo, Dr. Eugene Milledzi and I. That was under the mentorship of the venerable Prof D. K. Agyeman (ERNWACA). The findings which were adequately disseminated pointed to the fact that in this country, there is a lot more to be done if we really want to achieve quality education. For the purpose of that study, we defined quality education as “the ability of the Basic School student to read, understand, write and perform basic mathematical calculations and apply what have been taught (lifelong learning, SDG 4).” And at the end of the study, we found that majority of our Basic school students cannot match up to this criteria. 

The United Nations Children’s Fund (2000) criteria for quality education includes:

1. Learners who are healthy, well-nourished and ready to participate and learn, and supported in learning by their families and communities;
2. Environments that are healthy, safe, protective and gender-sensitive, and provide adequate resources and facilities;
3. Content that is reflected in relevant curricula and materials for the acquisition of basic skills, especially in the areas of literacy, numeracy and skills for life, and knowledge in such areas as gender, health, nutrition, HIV/AIDS prevention and peace.
4. Processes through which trained teachers use child-centred teaching approaches in well-managed classrooms and schools and skilful assessment to facilitate learning and reduce disparities.
5. Outcomes that encompass knowledge, skills and attitudes, and are linked to national goals for education and positive participation in society.

This implies that, achieving quality education is not just a matter of slogan or introducing free SHS, it is a “complex system embedded in a political, cultural and economic context” (UNCF, 2000). Therefore, more needs to be done if truly our focus is to achieve quality education. MoE and GES have certain variables they use to measure quality education, they call it, quality inputs. Some of them are; student-teacher ratio, student-trained teacher ratio, student-textbook ratio, student-classroom ratio, student-desk ratio among others. These input are supposed to be relatively reasonable to achieve quality education. For example, the GES norm is that, student to teacher ratio at the SHS level is 25. Thus, each 25 students should be handled by a teacher. The national average is around 1:35/40. Also, student to classroom ratio hovers around 46, thus, on the average 46 students are assigned to one classroom. The implication of this is that, by removing the barriers of accessibility (affordability and infrastructure), the automatic result is an increase in enrolment. The end result will be an increase in student-teacher ratio, student-classroom ratio among others.

Using the input variables from the GES, much needs to be done to achieve the theme of quality. However, if we raise the bar to the global standard of quality education, then we have a lot to do. At the apex of all this is the type of secondary education curricula that we have as a country. It is commendable that the MoE is undertaking a review of the curriculum for Pre-Tertiary education in Ghana. To this end, I need to reiterate the fact that, there is more room for improvement in respect of quality. There is the need for the MoE and GES and the National Inspectorate Board to strengthen their supervisory and monitoring roles. The increase in enrolment will have pedagogical implications and can affect teacher-student interaction and instructional processes. That is why, monitoring and supervision should be more stringent than ever. The logistics challenge faced by circuit supervisors should be addressed immediately to make them more productive in undertaking their core mandate. Lessons on the impact of increase in enrolment on quality education as a result of free education from countries such as Uganda, Kenya and recently Namibia should always be a guide.

In conclusion, it is imperative to state that, education is a merit good and therefore any means possible should be applied to make it more accessible to the entire populace irrespective of the cost implications. The free SHS as espoused by the MoE and being implemented would eventually improve ACCESS. However, it does not address the issue of EQUITY and if prudent steps are not taken, it would affect QUALITY of education negatively in the long run.

**All references acknowledged.

Peter Partey Anti

The writer is the Ag. Executive Director, The Institute for Education Studies (IFEST), Accra, Ghana. He is a professional researcher and educational consultant with both local and international experience.