The debate over the actual number of Community Day Senior High Schools ready for admissions has intensified as Mahama’s National Democratic Congress (NDC) government continues to give conflicting figures.
It started with a promise by President John Mahama to build 200 Community SHSs before the December 7 general election; then the figure dropped to 123 before being reduced further to 70 and finally to 42.
Apart from the conflicting figures, most of the schools are yet to take off with lands allocated for the projects lying bare.
President Mahama announced that 42 of the schools will be ready for admission by the end of October to coincide with the commencement of the 2016/2017 academic year; and his Education Minister, Prof. Jane Naana Opoku Agyemang, has confirmed that they have been completed and were ready for admissions.
Deputy Minister in-charge of Tertiary Education, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, recently released a list of 123 Community Day SHSs which he said were at various stages of completion but could not mention which ones had been completed and commissioned by the president so far.
Interestingly, construction works had not commenced in majority of the schools he claimed were at various stages of completion.
Many of the sites designated for the projects are empty while in other places some of the buildings were either at foundation or lintel levels.
Inaugurating a third Community Day SHS at Kwamekrom in the Biakoye District of the Volta Region last Monday, President Mahama said, “By the end of October, 42 of these schools will be ready, and I have asked the Ministry of Education and the Ghana Education Service to go ahead and populate the schools for this academic year.
“That is at the start of this academic year, 42 of the schools will be ready and we expect that by the end of the year, about 70 of them will be ready.”
The president on September 5, 2016, admitted that he could not complete all the 200 community day schools he promised Ghanaians in his first term in office.
He had promised that 123 schools were under construction and said that he could complete all of them before the December 7 general election, confirming skeptics’ perception on the grandiose promise.
“In my next term of office (from 2017), by the grace of God, we will complete all the 200 new senior high schools that I promised,” he said, adding, “As I said, currently, 123 are under construction, and that means that the Central Region will receive additional secondary schools among the remaining over 70 schools that we shall build,” he stated during the inauguration of the Abodoman Community Day Senior High School in the Agona East District of the Central Region.
Okudzeto Ablakwa had said in late September that 10 of the schools had already been inaugurated while two (Agric Nzema Day SHS in the Ashanti Region and Nemonwora Day SHS in the Agona East District) will be inaugurated very soon.
He had said that 30 were at various stages of completion and would be ready by October, which is almost ending.
He had also said that nine out of the remaining 30 would be completed before September ended and the remaining 21 would be done before October ends.
Interestingly, on September 4, this same minister was on Citi FM saying he believed that about 70 of the schools would be ready to admit fresh students in the current academic year; and this even contradicted President John Mahama’s initial 123 schools.
By William Yaw Owusu