Teacher union calls on Parliament to reject the Free SHS policy Bill

The National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) has expressed disappointment over the lack of extensive stakeholder consultation and input on the Free Senior High School (Free SHS) bill submitted to Parliament for approval.

The leadership of the pre-tertiary teacher union following the lack of stakeholder engagement has called on the Parliament of Ghana to reject the controversial Free Senior High School Bill without Education Stakeholders’ input.

The teacher union call came after the Minister for Education, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum told the Daily Graphic the Free SHS bill when passed into law among other things will decouple the Junior High School (JHS) from the Primary School.

Adutwum said the Junior High School (JHS) system when decoupled from the primary school system will be part of Senior High School (SHS) thereby creating six years of Secondary Education for prospective students in the country.

The Education Minister further disclosed that the Free Senior High School Bill will see the cancellation of the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) as a precondition for gaining admission to the Senior High School.

But in a statement sighted by Thisterm.com, NAGRAT said it is disappointed in the Ministry of Education for neglecting teacher unions whose members are key in the implementation of the Free SHS programme in the draft of the Bill

“The inconveniences that teachers have had to bear upon the implementation of the Free SHS programme have been enormous. It is therefore unthinkable that the Ministry of Education will once more evince this gross disrespect and disregard towards the teachers of this country, by this haste in promulgating a law without the input of stakeholders.

Leadership recalls that the Teacher Unions made cogent inputs into both the Education Regulatory Bodies Act, 2020 (Act 1023) and the Pre-Tertiary Education Act, 2020 (Act 1049).

Therefore, NAGRAT takes exception to the effrontery of the Hon. Minister of Education to have consciously assumed that the views and inputs of the stakeholders do not matter in this Bill.

We hereby demand that the Government, in the interest of mutual respect and acceptance of any law that will affect Education, should suspend the presentation of the said bill to Parliament to allow for broad consultation.

We call on Parliament, especially the Select Committee on Education, that the so-called Bill is without Education Stakeholders’ input, particularly the Teacher Unions, and therefore, should respectively, be rejected,” NAGRAT said.