President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has said results obtained by the 2021 and 2022 batches of the Free Senior High School (SHS) has settled the controversy that characterised the quality of secondary education after the introduction of the policy in September 2017.
According to the President, with results from the 2021 batch of students being commendable and that of last year being adjudged the best results of the WASSCE in the past 8 years, there can be no further debate over the quality of education Ghanaian children are receiving under the Free SHS.
He said “the results of each batch of the graduates whom with your indulgence are called the ‘Akufo-Addo graduates’, have surpassed those chalked in 2016 prior to my assumption of office.”
The President, speaking at the 61st Conference of the Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools (CHASS) at the Achimota School in Accra Wednesday, October 11, 2023, said the double track system which also emerged as a result of the Free SHS has also been vindicated since it has not provided poor results as anticipated.
“The 2021 batch of students who also obtained commendable results were the pioneers of the double track system which illicit a lot of unmerited vilification and unfounded criticism on its introduction. The 2022 results are the best of the last 8 years. Surely, there can no longer be any controversy about the validity of the Free SHS policy and its consequential measures,” President Akufo-Addo noted.
The President further spoke about fears which were raised about the Free SHS policy compromising the quality of education. From the statistics he provided, the President noted that despite the increase in enrollment of students, the quality, rather than the fears of decline, improved.
“Quality, despite the increase in nominal figures, which now stands at 1.4 million students has not decline. On the contrary, it has improved and I want to use this opportunity to thank you warmly, members of CHASS for the impressive results seen in the WASSCE examination since the commencement of the free senior high school policy in September 2017,” the President stated.
He provided the statistics to buttress his assertions.
“The 2022 results of the first batch of the Akufo-Addo graduates shows 60.39% of students recording A1 to C6 results in English as opposed to 31.6% in 2016. 62.45% recording A1 to C6 in Integrated Science in 2022 as opposed to 48.35% in 2016 with the 2022 result being a spike regression from the 2021 pass rate of 65.7%. 61.39% recording A1 to C6 in Mathematics as compared to 33.12% in 2016 and 71.51% recording A1 to C6 in Social Studies as compared to 54.55% in 2016,” he explained further.
READ ALSO: Free SHS Policy: Prof. Adei takes a swipe at policy as cause of Ghana’s economic mess
