The government is preparing to introduce the Free Senior High School (SHS) Bill to Parliament in the coming days, with the goal of regulating the policy and ensuring its long-term sustainability.
This initiative addresses concerns about potential cancellation by future administrations and the various challenges the programme currently faces.
Educational stakeholders, including EduWatch, have proposed that parents who choose boarding facilities should be responsible for covering the associated costs.
Additionally, EduWatch has recommended focusing the policy on children from low-income households, using data from the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) programme to identify eligible families.
During a Leaders’ Media Briefing on Tuesday, June 11, the Majority Leader, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, announced that the forthcoming bill aims to enhance the effectiveness and sustainability of the Free Senior High School (SHS) policy, aligning it with the aspirations outlined in Chapter 5 of the Constitution.
Afenyo-Markin emphasized that although these constitutional provisions are not currently enforceable by law, the government intends to make them justifiable through the proposed legislation.
“I’m also able to report that the Education Minister will present the Free SHS Bill to Parliament. The chapter five of the Constitution provides some aspirational indicatives. Those are not justiciable, but once by a policy of the government, an aspiration as a message by the constitution is put into action then to make it justiciable, you enact.”
“In other words, there are provisions in the constitution that you cannot enforce, you cannot claim the right to those provisions. The fact that they are there does not mean that you can apply to the court to enforce those rights, they are aspirational,” he said.