Education stakeholders have suggested that boarding students should be able to cover their own boarding and meal costs, which would be a major alteration to the nation’s Free Senior High School (SHS) program.
To lessen some of the financial strain on the government, they proposed allowing free school attendance for only day students.
During the current National Education Forum in Sunyani last Monday, stakeholders from the Bono, Bono East, Ahafo, and Western North zones stated that the suggested funding model would encourage high-quality education since the government would have sufficient funds to spend in other educational areas.
Group talks on five main areas—infrastructure, including educational and physical technologies; quality education provision; education financing; regulatory and accountability systems; and evidence for decision making—led to the recommendations from the stakeholders.
Among the stakeholder groups were academics, civil society organizations, parents, students, vice-chancellors, regional directors of education, directors of technical and vocational education and training, and teacher unions.
The stakeholders emphasized the necessity for schools, especially SHSs, to engage in farming in order to generate income and help with student food.
Additionally, they encouraged the government to enable the various scholarship programs so that students, especially those at the tertiary level, can access the cash.
The majority of the scholarship programs only existed in name, according to the stakeholders, and students were unable to use them.
According to the participants, financial difficulties continue to be a significant source of frustration for many students, which has an impact on their academic performance.
Additionally, they urged the Ministry of Education to make sure that qualified educators were assigned to classrooms and that professional development and refresher courses were regularly scheduled for them.
