2025 budget: GH¢3.5b allocated for Free SHS – Ato Forson

The Minister for Finance, Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson, has disclosed that the government has allocated a whopping GH¢3.5 billion for the Free Senior High School policy for 2025.

The information that GH¢3.5b has been allocated for Free SHS has been welcomed by Ghanas and education stakeholders.

Presenting the 2025 budget to Parliament, the Minister disclosed that the government will be uncapping GETFund in order to have more cash to finance the Free SHS policy.

“Mr. Speaker, the overarching concern about free secondary education has been its quality and the absence of a dedicated source of funding. H.E President John Mahama has resolved the funding challenge by uncapping the GETFund. This makes available dedicated funds for the full financing of free secondary education and free tertiary education for Persons with Disability (PWDs).

The Finance Minister added that the Capping and Realignment Act will be amended to uncap Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund).

“Mr. Speaker, this year the budget for the free secondary education programme is GH¢3.5 billion.

“By uncapping the GETFund, we will be making available an additional GH¢4.1 billion to the GETFund, specifically for the financing of the free secondary education programme and other related expenditures.

“Aside from the uncapping of GETFund, we have also absorbed the debt service, made up of interest and principal, from the Daakye bond GETFund contracted.

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“Mr. Speaker, we have also allocated an amount of GH¢564.6 million for comprehensive provision of free curricula-based textbooks covering the following: four (4) sets of KG books and workbooks for about 2.8 million learners; ii four (4) sets of primary textbook for 800,000 learners; and iii nine (9) sets of JHS 3 textbooks for 540,000 learners.”

GH¢3.5b allocated for Free SHS means the Free SHS policy will be sustained with more funding to help deal with shortfalls of the policy since it was implement.