The government is set to present the Free Senior High School (SHS) Bill to Parliament in the coming days. This bill aims to regulate the policy and ensure its sustainability amid concerns of potential cancellation by future governments and existing challenges faced by the program.
Stakeholders in the educational sector, including EduWatch, have suggested that parents opting for boarding facilities should cover the associated fees. EduWatch also recommended targeting the policy at children from poor households, using data from the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) program as a reference point.
At a Leaders’ Media Briefing on Tuesday, June 11, Majority Leader Alexander Afenyo-Markin announced the bill’s forthcoming presentation. He asserted that the bill seeks to make the policy more effective and sustainable, aligning with the aspirations outlined in Chapter 5 of the Constitution. While these provisions are currently not enforceable by law, the government aims to make them justiciable through 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 added.
