Let’s add Free SHS to educational system – Nana Addo to Ghana

His Excellency Nana Akufo-Addo after describing the implementation of the Free SHS policy as a success on Saturday has called on the good people of Ghana to accept for the policy to be part of the country’s educational system.

Introduced in 2017, Akufo-Addo in a speech at the 70th Anniversary of the Tamale Senior High School said he is proud of the results of the 5-year-old policy that has seen 1.6 million children continue their secondary education for free.

The President of the Republic said the excellent WASSCE results of the first and second batch of the popular Free Senior High School graduates gives further evidence that the Free SHS program has been a success.

“There were some who described Free SHS as waste, some said it ould destroy our Ivy League schools and some indicated the policy was going to compromise the quality of secondary education but none have happened,” he noted.

He at the TAMASCO anniversary urged Ghanaians to forgo partisan and parochial politics and agree for the popular Free SHS policy to be part of the national educational system to educate more children in the country.

A total of 446,352 candidates representing 221,239 girls and 224,913 girls from 965 schools sat for the international examination at various centres. A total of 3,545 of the candidates who registered were absent from the examination.

The West African Examinations Council announcing the release of the 2021 WASSCE School results on Wednesday said a total of 1,339 subject results and 174 entire results have been called for various examination malpractice.

“The entire results of 3,667 candidates have been withheld pending the conclusion of investigations into various cases of examination malpractice detected during and after the conduct of the examination,” WAEC said in a blog post.

The Council also disclosed the scripts of candidates from 194 schools in certain subjects have also been withheld and are being scrutinised. The withheld results it said may be cancelled or released based on the outcome of the probe.

It said results have been hosted on the WAEC results online portal https://eresults.waecgh.org/ for candidates who desire to check. “They may access their results at the Council’s website or dial the short code *944#,” WAEC added.

Meanwhile, the results checking portal since Friday, December 10, 2021, has been shut down for maintenance amid technical challenges that the non-profit-making organization has said caused changes in candidates’ grades.