I’m considering free tertiary after Free SHS – Nana Addo

His Excellency Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo says his administration after the successful implementation of Free Senior High School (Free SHS) is considering introducing free tertiary for students who become successful at WASSCE.

Nana Addo disclosed this in his speech at the just-ended Global Education Summit co-hosted by the President of Kenya, Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta and the United Kingdom’s Boris Johnson in the United Kingdom (UK).

“In Ghana now that we have widened public education in the secondary school level to all and sundry, we are trying to replicate it to the tertiary level,” President of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo told leaders at the Education Summit.

He indicated that as the central government targets to double tertiary student enrolment through the free tertiary policy, infrastructures in the various accredited public tertiary institutions across the country would also be increased.

He told participants of the Global Education Summit that students in public tertiary institutions in Ghana now only need a Ghana Card instead of a guarantor to be granted a student loan by the Students Loan Trust Fund (SLTF).

President Nana Addo also said the Government of Ghana (GoG) as part of its efforts to ensure quality education is accessible to all children in the country has set aside 23 per cent of the nation’s budget for education development.

“We are spending some 23 per cent of our budget on education. It’s one of the highest on the continent, and we intend to revamp it up even more,” His Excellency stated in his address at the Global Education Summit.

In a related development, he has also reiterated at the 10th anniversary of the University of Health and Allied Sciences (UHAS) that the Free SHS policy would not be cancelled despite the current economic crisis facing the country.

Speaking at the event, he stated that the ravaging effects of the Covid and the Ukraine invasion on the world economy would not deter the government from providing free quality education at the basic and secondary school levels.

Mr Addo Dankwa indicated that the government has identified education as an “equalizer of opportunities” and hence would continue to channel resources into the sector to ensure the effective training of the Ghanaian child.

“I want each of them [children] to look in the mirror every morning and know they can achieve anything they dream of when they complete tertiary”, the President told stakeholders at the Health and Allied Sciences 10th Anniversary.