Asaase Radio Repeats Inaccurate Claim on Free SHS Enrolment Figures
Disputed Figures on Beneficiaries of the Free SHS Policy Resurface
On December 17, 2024, Asaase Radio claimed on its X account that nearly 6 million students had benefited from Ghana’s Free Senior High School (Free SHS) program.
This claim, however, is not new and has been echoed by various political leaders of the NPP and institutions in recent months, despite evidence to the contrary.
The Free SHS program was introduced in 2017 by President Nana Akufo-Addo to provide free secondary education to students. While the program has increased enrollment rates, the actual number of beneficiaries is lower than claimed. According to the Ministry of Finance, the total number of beneficiaries from 2017 to 2024 is approximately 3,135,754.
Several political leaders, including President Akufo-Addo, Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia, and the Minister of Education, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum, have made similar claims.
On August 18, 2024, during the NPP’s manifesto launch, the National Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Stephen Ntim claimed that 5.7 million students had benefited from the policy since its inception in 2017.
At the launch of the Smart Schools project on March 25, President Akufo Addo said, “5.1 million children have so far benefited from the Free SHS programme since it was instituted in September 2017.” At the same event, the Minister of Education, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum said, “Today, some 5.7 million children who are our own children, brothers, and sisters have benefited from the programme.” The minister’s figure indicated that 600,000 more students had benefited from the policy, higher than what the president mentioned.
In a community engagement in Amasaman in the Ga West Municipality in September 2024, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia also repeated that the Free SHS programme has benefited 5.7 million children, with enrollment increasing from 800,000 to 1.4 million.
Kennedy Agyapong repeated the same claim during the NPP’s final rally on December 5, 2024.
Fact-Check Ghana had earlier debunked these claims as inaccurate. On Thursday, July 18, 2018, the former Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta presented the 2018 Mid-Year Policy Review of that year’s budget to parliament.
He told the House that due to the implementation of the Free SHS Policy, an additional 90,000 students who would have dropped out of school now had access to secondary education.
He added that as of July 18, 2018, almost a year after the implementation of the policy, over 350,000 first-year students were benefiting from the initiative. “Currently, a total of 362,118 first-year students from all public SHS are benefiting from the programme.
This is made up of 177,692 day students and 244,426 boarding students,” he said.
The Free SHS program has had a significant impact on education in Ghana, increasing access to secondary education, especially for students from rural and disadvantaged communities.
The program has also reduced the financial burden on parents and has contributed to the country’s economic and social development.
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