The minister, who was speaking on Adom TV’s morning show “Badwam” on Tuesday noted that his ministry is going to continue giving 30 percent of SHS admissions to students with poor backgrounds and poor grades, especially in good schools to help them improve on their academics.

He said the schools’ ability to turn round the poor grades of these students at the end of the secondary education will prove how good the schools are.

According to him, majority of students fail their exams because they dwell in deplorable areas and have to travel several kilometres to school adding that if given the access to educational material and good learning environment, these children will be able to excel.

Dr Opoku-Prempeh recalled how the late Professor Kwesi Andam, former Vice-Chancellor of Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology once headed to Central Region’s deplorable communities to find students in poor communities with worse grades and enrolled them in Kwame Nkrumah University of Science Technology finest courses.

He said, “It turned out those students who never had access and opportunities to good basic and secondary education got good grades at the end of their tertiary education,”

He was of the view that every child should be given equal access to education, if education can really reduce poverty.

“Wealthy parents who attended renowned schools shouldn’t be philanthropic to their alma mater because they want their children to gain admission in the school,” he cautioned.

The minister also lashed out at schools that reject students with poor grades and backgrounds asking for the heads of such schools to be prosecuted.