Since 1951, Ghana has tried different policies and approaches to ensure free compulsory universal basic education with varying degrees of success.
The 1992 Constitution under Article 25 provides for equal rights to educational opportunities and in particular, introduces progressively free education at the secondary level.
This week, Senior Minister Osafo Marfo hinted government’s intention to use revenues accrued in the Ghana Heritage Fund (GHF) to extend the free basic education to the secondary level touted as the NPP’s ‘Free SHS’ policy starting September 2017.
The New Patriotic Party (NPP) manifesto promised to redefine basic education to include SHS, covering vocational, agricultural and technical schools, and make it available for free for all Ghanaians.
Currently basic education includes preschool, primary, and Junior high school. This brief aims to shed light on Ghana’s current economic situation to outline various options that could be considered by the government in funding the ‘Free SHS’ from petroleum revenues.
Ghana is currently experiencing dire economic times with low commodity prices, high costs of living, financial malfeasances (abuse of public funds as cited annually in the Auditor General’s report), limited fiscal space caused by fiscal rigidities, a lower sovereign credit rating, and an ever ballooning public debt constituting about 74% of GDP.
These have forced Ghana to subscribe to an IMF bailout program projected to end in December 2017. Also the presence of significant budget leakages accumulated through inefficiencies in public spending pose further challenges to the Ghanaian economy.
The NPP made several campaign promises such as the one district one factory, one village one dam, 814 km railway from Accra to Paga, the Zongo Development Fund amongst others.
These promises, in the midst of Ghana’s poor economic performance may have warranted the need for the government to scout for other funding sources.
As a result, it has become very crucial to find sustainable funding options to finance the ‘Free SHS’. The decision to use the GHF has sparked countrywide debates over what, when and how Ghana invests her petroleum revenues.
For more check this: file:///C:/Users/hp/Downloads/Spending%20Oil%20Revenue%20on%20Free%20SHS-Sober%20Reflections%20Required__NRGI.pdf
Source: Natural Resource Governance Institute
