Free SHS enrollment figure in Bawumia vision speech fact-checked
Africa Education Watch (EduWatch) has fact-checked the Free Senior High School (Free SHS) enrollment figure announced in the vision speech of the New Patriotic Party’s 2024 election flagbearer, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia.
The Free SHS fact check comes after the Vice President and presidential candidate, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia on February 7, 2023, delivered a vision speech at the University of Professional Studies (UPSA) auditorium in Accra.
In a social media post sighted by Thisterm.com, EduWatch disclosed that paragraph 59 of Bawumia’s statement indicated the government implemented Free SHS with an increase in enrolment from 800,000 in 2016 to 1.4 million by 2022.
But, citing Ministry of Education (MoE) data by the end of the 2022/2023 academic year, the education think tank – Africa Education Watch said the Free Senior High School enrollment stood at 1,320,976 representing 1.3 million
The 1.3 million Free SHS enrolment figure EduWatch indicated was announced by the Ministry of Education in its presentation to Parliament on 2024-2027 adding that the previous academic year’s (2021/22) enrolment was 1,308,816.
With Bawumia’s 1.4 million contradicting the Education Ministry’s 1.3 million student enrollment by the 2022/2023 year, EduWatch says Bawumia added about 79,024 more students to the number enrolled under Free SHS by 2022.
“Dr Mahamudu Bawumia’s vision speech added about 79,024 more students to the number enrolled under Free SHS by 2022. His Excellency’s statement on Free Senior High School (Free SHS) enrolment is inaccurate
The accurate enrolment figure by 2022 was 1.3 million (1.320,976); not 1.4 million,” the Executive Director of Education Policy Research and Advocacy Organization (EduWatch), Mr Kofi Asare disclosed in the social media post.
About Free SHS
In September 2017, the Ministry of Education achieved a major milestone with the implementation of the Free Senior High School program. That year, there was an 11% increase in enrolment, breaking records from previous years.
In the 2017/2018 academic year, a new record was set with the highest enrolment ever seen in the country with more than 470,000 students enrolled in various government Senior High Schools (SHSs) amid the Free SHS programme.
Under the Free SHS policy, every Ghanaian child who is placed into a public Second Cycle Institution by the Computerised School Selection and Placement System (CSSPS) is eligible for a free SHS education.