President John Mahama has described as populist, the opposition New Patriotic Party’s free Senior High School education promise.

Nana Addo and the NPP insist they can use less than one percent of Ghana’s GDP which translates into about 78 million Ghana cedis for the first three months of the free SHS implementation in 2013 if they win the December polls.

But the ruling NDC remains skeptical about the promise. It has described it as a desperate attempt by the NPP flagbearer to win votes.

That skepticism was accentuated by President Mahama when he spoke to some Ghanaians in New York where he had been attending the 67th session of the UN General Assembly meeting.

President Mahama said “looking at our educational system without being populist and just promising something for which the electorates will vote you into power, the demands for our educational system go beyond free SHS education".

The President added “People say NPP is promising free SHS education and so why don’t you promise same but I say no; we must look at what our education is asking for and based on that we give a programme to Ghanaians to assess and see which of the two programmes in terms of education is better”.