By the end of the 2022 school selection and placement exercise, a total of 2.2 million students will have gained admission into the Free Senior High School (SHS) system.

According to the Deputy Minister of Education, the Reverend John Ntim Fordjour, who announced this, before the government introduced the Free SHS policy 100,000 qualified Ghanaian children could not benefit yearly from secondary education because their parents did not have money to send their wards to school. 

He was speaking at St Mary Senior High School (SMASCO), here last Friday during the handing over of completed projects executed by the St. Mary Old Boys Association (SMOBA) at Lolobi in the Oti Region.

They included the renovation of a 10-room dormitory and the construction of 10   bath cubicles. 

He recalled that a section of Ghanaians expressed concern about the Free SHS policy when it was introduced with some of them expressing the view that, quality of education would be compromised.

He said that the credible performance of the first batch of the Free SHS policy showed that academic performance had improved, which was visible at the West Africa Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE). 

The Minister noted that the government, since 2019 started reforms in the educational sector, which would propel education of the country to 2030 to ensure that the type of education offered would meet the development needs of the country. 

According to him, the curriculum reforms in the education sector would encourage critical thinking among students as well as technical and vocational training and would meet the changing demands in industrial revolution. 

He said as part of the educational reforms model Junior High Schools (JHS) would be built and well equipped with modern laboratories to adequately prepare the minds of the youth towards the changing technology across the world.

The Acting Oti Regional Director of Education (ORDE), Nana Kugbeadzor Bakatei II, commended SMOBA for supporting the institution, which she said reiterated the need for effective collaboration between stakeholders in the provision of school infrastructure since government alone could not afford to provide all the needs of education in the country. 

The Oti Regional Minister, Dr Joshua Makubu, lauded the activities of SMOBA and assured the school authorities that the poor access roads in the school would soon be improved and asked students to take advantage of the opportunities available to them and learn hard to become responsible adults. 

The President of SMOBA, Mr James Kwasi Oberku, explained that members of the association made contributions with support from some benefactors donating various items to help in the successful completion of the project.