The President of Ghana, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo has cautioned headmasters and principals trying to undermine the free Senior High School program to quit for they will not thrive as long as Ghanaians have embraced the initiative.

“I can tell them that they will not succeed. They will not stand in the way of the future of our nation,” he said.

Speaking at an interaction with members of staff and students of Mawuli Senior High School on Tuesday, 5th November, 2019, the 2nd day of his 2-day working visit to the Volta Region, the President indicated that prior him coming into office, an average of 100,000 children, annually, could not transition from Junior High School into Senior High School because of financial constraints.

“We couldn't progress as a nation if we continued the hemorrhage of our human capital. 100,000 on the average every year for over ten years, one million young Ghanaians would grow up with the knowledge that they have at the Junior High school level and that's it? That's no way our future could be bright,” he said.

That's why, the President noted, that his government took the decision “right from the beginning of our administration that we were going to change the direction of our country, we were going to change the educational policy of our country and bring in the Free Senior High School, so that those 100,000 that could not be captured in Senior High, now they are captured.”

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The first batch of Free SHS beneficiaries are set to write the WASSCE next year and his message to students Mawuli Senior High School receivers was simple, “shame all the detractors”.

“The eyes of the world will be on you. Make sure that you shame all the detractors of the Free Senior High School policy. I am confident that the young men and women I see here in Mawuli are going to rise to the challenge and shame the people who said that Free Senior High School is not a good idea,” the president said.

Nana Addo Dankwa also stressed that he has no regrets on financing the free SHS policy with the country’s oil revenues.

The free Senior High School program has accommodated more than 1.2 million students across the country, 400,000 more than the total number of students enrolled before its implementation. It has recorded the highest number of Ghanaian youths in the secondary cycle schools.

With the Free SHS policy being financed by the country’s oil revenues, he stated that “I don't have any regrets whatsoever about committing the oil revenues of our country to preparing our nation for the future. It is the best, most efficient, most equitable way all of us can participate in those revenues.”

President Akufo-Addo stressed that the oil revenues “are not there, sitting there, waiting for politicians like me to come and put their hands in oil revenues in their pockets, no. It is being used to prepare our nation for the future of our country. That's the best way we can use the oil revenues.”