Speaker of Parliament, Professor Mike Oquaye, has assured Ghanaians that President Nana Akufo-Addo is fully committed to ensuring the Free Senior High School (SHS) policy succeeds.

According to him, the policy has come to stay and urged stakeholders to contribute their quota to its sustainability.

Speaking in an interview with Class News’ Kwame Appiah-Kubi on the sidelines of the 55th Anniversary Celebration of the Asamankese Senior High School at Asamankese in the Eastern Region on the theme: ‘Sustaining Ghana's future through Free SHS education, the role of stakeholders’, Prof Oquaye noted that Nana Akufo-Addo dreamt of the Free SHS even before the 2008 elections.

He said: “The president did not suddenly dream about Free SHS. I can tell you on my word of honour that before he even stood in 2008, it was something that he had always said. [He and I], personally have had a number of discussions on it. The man is so committed to lifting the educational level of our people that he says even if we have to spend all our oil money and all the stolen monies and have a good fiscal policy towards educating our people, we would have given this country the best we could have possibly given. That is; improvement of its human capital, and that is a great policy.

“Today, Tullow has supported the programme with $10 million, we are calling on all people of good will to also do something because, if your father says as a family, we are now going to build a house, so, now we are not going to chop chicken and egg every day, so, my wife and children should understand, shouldn’t they understand?

“…Today, almost 200,000 pupils who are going to benefit from this policy would not have been in senior high schools but for this policy.”

On vandalism in tertiary institutions, Prof Oquaye explained that he has no soft spot for the menace and frowns on it.

Prof Oquaye, who was born in Asamankese and also had his basic education there, promised to construct a modern ICT Library for the school.