Former President John Dramani Mahama has replied the Minister of Education, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum’s, assertion that his (Mahama’s) promise to review the Free Senior High School (Free SHS) programme means he would cancel it.

Mahama, the flagbearer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), said that he has no intention of cancelling the Free SHS programme but only wants to review its implementation so that it becomes beneficial to Ghanaians.

He said that the programme in its current state is making parents pay more to keep their children in school compared to when it was not being implemented.

The former president, who made these comments while answering a question on Dr Adutwum’s interpretation of his promise at a panel discussion as part of the 75th Annual New Year School and Conference, at the University of Ghana, Legon, was bemused that someone of the minister’s pedigree would same review is the same as cancellation.

“Our colleagues would take advantage of that (his comment) so that even a professor would say his understanding of review means to cancel.

“Everybody has an English dictionary or just google the word review. I have never seen any dictionary that interpreters review to mean to abolish," he said.

He added, “It is part of the politics that we play. I think we should overcome that. I still say that within 100 days of me becoming president, we are going to call a stakeholder conference on Free SHS”.

Mahama said that he started implementing the Free SHS progressively as stated in the constitution but the current government is using more than half of the country's entire education budget for its Free SHS to the detriment of the other levels of education, especially the basic and Junior High School levels with nothing to show for it.

BAI/OGB

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