Free Education for all Secondary Schools

E. Ablorh-Odjidja
December 05, 2017

Free secondary school education for all is ultimately a good idea. It is now the policy in Ghana, as announced in September of 2017.

But the problem with this policy is its practicality. Is it free education or good education first?

Or should one suspect that this “free education” policy is based on faulty compassion, the sort that one gets from excessive political correctness that seeks votes instead of true equity?

Shall we focus first on the practical and, therefore, the affordable part first?

In the real world, free education (a good one) starts with the country's ability to bear the cost and not its capacity for compassion.

Hard considerations must first be on the cost to give a kid in Ghana a good education for that kid to compete well eventually in a global economy.

To bear the cost of true education is something we cannot afford, at least not in our current circumstances.

A country with porous borders such as ours can quickly become a magnet for neighboring countries when the free education policy kicks in. Therefore, there is no true way to calculate the ultimate cost in order to arrive at affordability for its proposal.

Implementing the policy now before we can afford it brings a risk; the nasty consequence of diluting the little good we have left in the current school system.

Inevitably, there will be the usual response: Ghana is rich in resources. We can afford it.

Well, yes, we can. But how well have we supported the current system? Aren’t we the same folks who depend on reoccurring education budgets support from countries overseas?

Free education may be needed, but at the same time the offering can be mere politics. And be mindful that the policy has been in the constitution since 1995. So how well have we done since?

It should now be understood that quality free universal education cannot be obtained overnight; not by rhetoric or political correctness.

This is not an attempt to be or sound cruel. On the contrary, it's a need to offer help. Ultimately, we need a free education system, but we need an approach to arrive at it without sinking the little good we have left in the current system.

And this calls for pulling  ourselves up the stairs of free education, step by step.

I have heard it stated that free education was an old idea that started with Nkrumah. Back in those days the policy was viable, given the size of our economy as compared with the population base. Plus, there was an urgent need to eradicate illiteracy. And the political desire to do so was there on all sides at the time.

There was need for informed and skilled labor. Good basic schools were available at start to build on. And more were added in all the regions for the purpose of achieving a literate and productive society.

The difficulty now is the momentum was stopped. The population base and illiteracy grew. With our wealth squandered, the public schools around now, at least the few good ones, are left with inadequate resources.

Graduates from these poor schools are left with scarce job opportunities at the market place, since the economy is producing fewer jobs than graduates.

What do we do now to get up to full speed in free education?

I think the first thing to do is to worry about quality and competency.

Good education is an elitist goal in itself, a kind of elitism that is based on merit.

The point of any sensible effort at education, at this stage of our development, must be to promote excellence with the little resource we have.

Give me a school that does not seek to excel and I shall name you a school that I cannot afford to send my ward to.

The competent few that we can grow for the market place will increase our chances of improving the economy.

Again, this is not an attempt to kill the idea. It is an effort to help nudge the process along, few steps at time, with the ultimate goal of offering free good education for all. Real, not just the rhetoric.

So, the goal for a limited resource society like ours is not by an approach of waving the universal free education wand but to concentrate on building few good free education-based schools within the regions first.

For those of us that were educated in the late 50s and early 60s, we can remember that there were good schools spread over all the regions.

There were scholarship programs that allowed aspiring students to access these good schools. That was then but that strategy is worth repeating.

Start this project with a policy that allows a few good, sufficiently resourced model, pilot schools in all the regions; the attendance at which will be based on competition, merit and intake capacity of the model schools.

The number of schools and intakes can be expanded over time in accordance to means on the part of government and as the economy expands and improves and not by whim or political wind.

To achieve fair intake at these schools, provisions for preparatory centers, supported by government, should be resourced primarily in poor communities.

Two or more model schools in each region to start, depending on population size of the region. The requirement for selection will be in accordance to rankings in the final secondary school’s examination results.

Schools may fall or rise as top school. The benefits to expect from this new approach will be in competition and pride of placing.

Once admitted, a mindset will grow among students attending these model schools that merit pays. Obviously, the designation and ranking of the school itself as at top school will have its psychological pull on teachers and parents too and, therefore, support from this community for the school can be expected to be immense.

Because of the privilege that comes with being selected as top or model school in a fee free based system, the system must be free of corruption; starting with teachers and administrators.

Any sign or charge of corruption and the school will face the risk of forfeiting its ranking as a model or top school.

In time, a culture of merit and a discipline for hard work will work its way through to benefit the entire society in many ways. The system will expand on its own as merit of intake and means of government increases.

But first, we need to nudge the process along, few model schools at a time.

E. Ablorh-Odjidja,Publsiher www.ghanadot.com, Washington, DC, December 05, 2017.

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