President Akufo-Addo has defended the government's choice to raise funding for its free senior high school policy.

The allocation comes amidst the nation's economic difficulties

Based on the results of those who received free SHS in the past two West Africa Secondary Schools Certificate Examinations, he claims that the policy has been more effective than what was in place before (WASSCE).

“The 2022 WASSCE results of the third batch of Free SHS graduates show 60.39 percent of students recording A1-C6 in English as opposed to 51.6 percent in 2016. 62.5 percent recording A1 to C6 in Integrated Science in 2022 as opposed to 48.35 percent in 2016 with this year’s results being a slight regression from the 2021 pass rate of 65.7 percent”, he said.

President Akufo-Addo who was speaking at the 70th Anniversary of Opoku Ware School in Kumasi further enumerated that, “61.39 percent recorded A1 to C6 in Mathematics as compared to 33.12 percent in 2016 and 71.5 percent recorded A1 to C6 in Social Studies as compared to 54.5 percent in 2016. Lest we forget the 2021 batch of students who also obtained very commendable results were the pioneers of the double track system which elicit a lot of vilification and unfounded criticism on its introduction”.

The President claims that the pass rate has steadily increased since the pre-free SHS era, with the 2022 results being the best in eight years.

For this reason, the President believes the Free SHS has been very successful with 1.3 million children benefitting from the policy which comes with its own challenges.

“There have been challenges associated with this policy which government has addressed substantially; many of them and there will be more in the course of time, such is the nature of social evolutions so that at every stage the challenges will be met”, he added.

Budgetary allocation for the policy implementation has increased from 2.3 billion cedis to 2.96 billion cedis, in spite of current economic challenges.

“From a budget of 2.3 billion cedis in 2022, a 28.6 percent increase has been applied to this year’s budget for free SHS”, he said.

The anniversary was on the theme; “Seven Decades of Leadership through Self Discipline”. In attendance was Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu the Second, among other dignitaries.

Management of the school used the opportunity to call on the government to resume the renovation of projects that have stalled for months.

Headmaster, Rev. Father Stephen Owusu Sekyere, who spoke at the ceremony said, “As a listening father, you heed to our request and came to our aid to renovate all the facilities on campus in June 2020. I regret to inform you today that the project was supposed to be completed within six months but have stalled after two years”.

Meanwhile, old students of the school are devoting resources to an investment account to support future renovation projects.