Executive Director of AfricaEduWatch, Kofi Asare, has expressed concern that the current secondary education system in Ghana is producing more students focused on grammar (academic) subjects than technical subjects.

Mr Asare made these remarks in the context of the government's Free Senior High School (SHS) policy, which aims to provide access to education for all students.

According to Asare, there is an imbalance in the education system's emphasis on different types of skills and knowledge.

Speaking on TV3'S Ghana Tonight, he said "The point I want to make is the President attempts to see the bigger picture on the Free SHS policy. He talks about producing a critical mass of youth who will have implications on the quality of Labour force."

"But you see, within that bigger picture, the President must also appreciate that our secondary education system is producing more Grammar students than technical students. Only about 12 percent of our students in senior high schools are doing technical skill oriented subjects. Majority of them are doing Grammar. So if you are producing 450,000 annually in secondary and you have a situation where only 40 percent is moving to tertiary, then it means that about 250,000 graduates are not moving anywhere. They will become unemployed. They don't have the skills to became primary Labour market entrants."

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, while delivering the State of the Nation Address in Parliament on February 27, emphasized that despite criticism from detractors who dismiss the free Senior High School (SHS) policy as a mere political slogan, the initiative has significantly improved the lives of Ghanaians who would have otherwise discontinued their education after Junior High School (JHS).

He noted that not being able to go to secondary school for “lack of money was so widespread and an accepted phenomenon that it led to some people thinking Senior High School was not meant for them or their children or for people from their village, and, therefore, a child in the family finishing Junior High School and moving on to Senior High School was simply not factored in their expectations."

“Free SHS might be labelled by its detractors as a mere political slogan that must be demonised, but it is, in fact, a transformative programme that has broken myths and liberated minds. It is humbling on the one hand and frightening on the other, to think of the sheer number of talents that Free SHS has unearthed that would otherwise have ended their formal education at BECE.”

President Akufo-Addo is confident that the country will get more “engineers, doctors, architects, scientists, writers and poets out of the increased numbers of those attending Senior High School, who will go on to further education.”