General News of Friday, 14 February 2020

Source: peacefmonline.com

Akufo-Addo's Free SHS 'more expensive' because of double track - Okudzeto Ablakwa

MP for North Tongu constituency, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa MP for North Tongu constituency, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa

With the double-track system attached to Akufo-Addo’s kind of Free Senior High Policy, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa claims that the system has derailed the free concept in the program, making it more expensive than Mahama’s progressively free senior high program.

According to him, parents can attest to the fact that they are paying more money for extra classes and hostel facilities due to the implementation of the double-track system in Akufo-Addo’s Free Senior High School Policy.

Speaking on Okay FM’s Ade Akye Abia Morning Show, the former Deputy Minister of Education in-charge of Tertiary insisted that the double-track system has been a nightmarish experience for parents especially as they have to organize another teacher to teach their children at home while they wait for their turn to go back to school.

“What we are saying is that double track has been a nightmarish experience, double-track has affected contact hours, affected time on task and double track has undermined the so-called free concept, because if you look at money that parents are paying for extra classes and hostel fee. Check how much parents are paying under the free SHS as compared to how much they paid under the progressively free SHS,” he claimed.

Hon. Okudzeto Ablakwa maintained that the double-track system became the next and easy way out for the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) when the Akufo-Addo government failed to complete Mahama’s Community Day Schools.

“What we are saying is that the double-track exists just because when the government took over power, it abandoned the Community Day Schools that former President Mahama was building. As we speak, they have abandoned all those Community Schools,” he asserted.