He called for the use of the National Identification Authority data for a means-tested system to prevent the rich from exploiting the system, while fully supporting students from vulnerable and poor backgrounds.

“Students from comfortable backgrounds who attended expensive basic schools must pay fees at the senior high school level so that resources are freed to fully cater for the poor and vulnerable,” Mr Boafo said.

He was speaking last Monday at the Annual Conference of the Ghana Bar Association in the Ashanti Regional capital, Kumasi.

The conference attracted a large number of legal practitioners, the Chief Justice, Justice Gertrude Sackey Torkornoo; the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Godfred Yeboah Dame, and other ministers of state; the Vice-Chancellor of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Professor Rita Akosua Dickson; clergymen, members of the Council of State, chiefs and queen mothers.

The President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo; the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, also attended the conference.

Basic education

Mr Boafo highlighted the importance of prioritising the improvement of basic education, such as eliminating schools under trees and providing sanitary products for girls in need, over-subsidising secondary education for those who could afford it.

He also referenced recent concerns about the school feeding programme revealed by the Auditor General, calling for a review and improvements to better serve the programme’s intended beneficiaries from poorer backgrounds.

“As a nation, our security is threatened when a chasm develops between the rich and the poor, the urban dweller and the rural dweller,” he said.

Mr Boafo also called on the government and successive governments to implement policies that would improve and make public school education at the basic level both accessible to the poor and marginalised in society while ensuring quality.

“In my opinion, the award of government scholarships should be only what it is, that is, informed by real merit, economic and financial need of beneficiaries, especially those from poor backgrounds, and relevance to specific critical areas of study and research, especially when such critical areas of study and research, particularly in science, technology and research programmes that are not offered by local universities.

“I find it immoral and troubling that government scholarships are given or awarded to persons with political connections and who are already from privileged and rich backgrounds at the expense of brilliant, truly needed individuals and students,” Mr Boafo said.

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Both schools, which are considered prestigious and known for their British Curricula, are located in Accra and Tema respectively.

From the viral fee slip from Roman Ridge, new entrants are expected to pay a registration fee of GH¢575.00 while the admission fee has been pegged at GH¢20,125.

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Pupils from nursery to Primary six are to pay GHS10,580.00 while Form one to Form five pupils pay GHS12,563.75 and sixth form GHS13,225.00.

With regards to SOS, students pursuing the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme will pay GHS24,700 and the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme GHS 31,200.

However, all these amounts are said to exclude school uniforms and bedding for boarding students.

The amounts have generated mixed reactions with many describing them as outrageous since some of these students will end up with their colleagues in less expensive schools in the same universities.

Some supporters of National Democratic Congress (NDC), flagbearer hopeful Stephen Atubiga have picked nomination forms on his blind side, the aspirant has told Asempa FM hos Philip Osei Bonsu on Ekosiisen.

The flagbearer hopeful who said he was on his way to Keta at the time of the interview said he wasn’t aware of any group picking forms on his behalf.

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He explained that picking the forms would amount to he betraying the other eight aspirants who, together with him, have raised concerns about the cost.

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A Deputy General Secretary of the NDC, Peter Otokunor who confirmed the news to Asempa FM said a group were at the headquarters to pick forms on behalf of Stephen Atubiga.

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He said those who picked the forms for Mr Atubiga said they were onion and yam sellers from the Agbogbloshie market.

He also disclosed that some other group was at the office to pick forms on behalf of another flagbearer hopeful, Sylvester Mensah.

Listen to the audio above for more of the interview.

It has directed that the candidates, numbering about 31,196, should be accepted back in their former junior high schools (JHSs) to join the current JHS Three students to re-write the BECE next year to enable them to benefit from the free SHS policy.

The students could not be placed in any of the SHSs, vocational schools and technical institutes because they either scored Grade Nine in both Mathematics and English Language or had raw scores below 140.

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The Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Prof. Kwasi Opoku Amankwa, disclosed this to the Daily Graphic in an interview in Accra yesterday.

Qualified candidates

At least 490,514 candidates who sat for the BECE qualified to be in SHSs and technical institutes for the commencement of the double-track educational system.
They constituted 90 per cent of the 521,710 candidates who registered for the BECE this year.

Out of the 490,514 who qualified to be placed, 423,134 were automatically placed, while 67,362 could not be matched with any of their choices and were asked to do self-placement.

Access to second-cycle schools

Prof. Amankwa explained that the decision was taken by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to ensure that no one was denied access to quality second-cycle education in the country.

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“As part of the government’s commitment to improve access to quality second-cycle education, it has been decided that all final-year students of JHSs of the 2017/2018 academic year who were unsuccessful at the BECE and could, therefore, not be placed in senior high schools are to be re-admitted to JHS Three to enable them to re-write the BECE for the ensuing year,” he stated.

Directive to heads of JHSs and regional directors

Prof. Amankwa directed all heads of public JHSs to ensure that all students who report at the schools were re-admitted and re-registered for next year’s BECE.

“Regional directors are kindly requested to supervise their respective district directors to ensure that heads and affected students duly comply with the directive.

“Management counts on the maximum cooperation of all stakeholders in this exercise,” Prof. Amankwa directed.

Last year, BECE candidates who could not qualify for admission to any of the SHSs, vocational schools and technical institutes had to re-register and rewrite the BECE as private candidates.

Double track

The government introduced the double-track SHS system this year to ensure that more BECE graduates have access to second-cycle education as a result of the increase in enrolment.

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The double-track system, which is part of the free SHS programme, is designed to reduce class sizes, increase contact hours, as well as increase the number of school holidays.

Statistics show that from 2013 to 2017, a staggering 493,016 BECE candidates qualified to pursue secondary education but could not do so because they were not enrolled.

Under the system, which has come under a raging debate since it was announced, a total of 8,872 GES staff are being recruited to ensure that no teacher is made to overwork himself or herself.

The system, which is a temporary measure, is expected to last between five and seven years from the 2018/19 academic year. Four hundred out of the 696 SHSs in the country will operate the double-track system.

She said the Ministry has also paid GHc3,392,031 as arrears for 264 schools during the first term.
“After we had been able to confirm the enrollment numbers based on the signed list that the individual schools submitted to the secretariat, we have now come to the conclusion that about [264] schools had some arrears to be paid to cover for the first term,” Mrs Gyan Kwakye said.

Prior payments
In September 2017, the government released for disbursement half of the GHc 486 million for the policy.
That amount was to serve the over 400,000 first-year students who benefited from the Free SHS policy this 2017/2018 academic year.
At the beginning of 2018, the government also released GHc62,606,403, in three instalment payments for the delivery of food items to Senior High Schools in the country to the National Food Buffer Stock Company.
In terms of other notable expenses under the policy, the government set aside an amount of GHc80 million to address challenges relating to furniture.
Budgetary allocation for Free SHS ‘woefully inadequate’
National Democratic Congress Member of Parliament for the North Tongu Constituency, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, has described the government’s budgetary allocation for Free SHS as woefully inadequate to support the programme.
According to him, the government would need at least two billion cedis to support Free SHS in 2018, 800 million cedis more than the amount that was allocated to it in the budget.
‘You can’t run education with voluntary funds’
The government announced that it would set up a fund to receive voluntary contributions from individuals to support the implementation of the free SHS programme and the educational sector as a whole.
However, this plan has come under fire from the Minority who believe this is an indication that government does not have the funds to properly implement its much-touted programme.
And according to Okudzeto Ablakwa, the government cannot afford to rely on the voluntary funds as a source of funding for free SHS, as projections for those funds may not materialise.

The statement said the directive was arrived at by the National Council for Tertiary Education as the 2017/2018 academic year fees was being collated and submitted to Parliament for scrutiny and subsequent approval.
It called on all Students Representative Councils in member institutions to take note of the directive and act as such.
The statement entreated the Government to, as a matter of urgency, constitute the Governing Councils for all technical universities and polytechnics to make way for congregation ceremonies to take place.
It said this would enable students, who completed school as far back as 2016, to be free to find jobs or further their studies.
The GNUTS said it would communicate to members on any new development.