Is free shs good or bad?

BASED ON THE CRITERIA FOR JUDGING ECONOMIC POLICIES IS FREE SHS GOOD OR BAD?

It is not for nothing that educational matters continue to engage the attention of national governments and other stakeholders in their quest to move their nations forward. This stems from the positive impact the educated individual makes to the society. Education forms an important part of a person’s life because it enables the individual to gain the needed skills to face life situations and also meet work demands. It is against this backdrop that Ghanaians expect the government as a matter of necessity, to remove all forms of barriers to quality education in order to ensure that this fundamental human right of the Ghanaian child is fully enjoyed. Therefore the implementation of the free Senior High School (SHS) policy is a good one based on personal analysis using the criteria for judging economic policies that is whether it will be efficient, promote growth, be equitable and also stable.

Firstly, when it comes to growth as an economic criteria for judging a policy I think the policy will have a potential impact on the human capital and economic growth in the country. A country’s human capital at the individual level can be described as that of aspect of education that adds to the productivity of the firm. So that human capital is essentially the skills acquired by an individual to be able to transform capital and raw materials into goods and services efficiently, it brings about growth in the human capital therefore government can generate revenue by exporting these goods and also can export the human capital which will bring foreign investors in the country since the human capital is highly trained thereby stimulating growth in the country.

On the other hand, the free senior high school policy will also be equitable, that is bridging the gap between the poor and the rich without any bias. This is because students who get between   aggregate   6 - 36 are the people who will be enrolled on the free SHS policy. This will ensure regardless of the circumstances of one’s birth, the individual also get an equally good chance of succeeding in life.

Moreover, efficiency means allocative efficiency. An efficient economy is one that produces what people want at the least possible cost. In view of this, the free SHS will be efficient in the sense that government already spends GHS 2,312 on each student yearly in subsidizing the fees of students in the SHS. Therefore the government to use GHS3.6bn on the whole policy is highly efficient.

Finally, stability refers to the condition in which national output is growing steadily, with low inflation and full employment of resources. Therefore the free SHS is going to bring about stability because more citizens will be educated which decrease the illiteracy rate therefore enlightening citizens on the importance of keeping the country’s currency well. This will prevent government from printing more monies which will result in inflation, thereby making the economy stable since all these will be prevented due to the increase in the literacy rate of the country.

I'm  Owusu-Agyemang Aephaniel(Kwaku Mends) and this is my view on the free shs policy based on the criteria for judging economic policies.