Gov’t makes GETFund financier of Free SHS policy

The government, under the leadership of President John Dramani Mahama, has directed the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) to finance expenditure related to the Free Senior High School (Free SHS) policy.

The Minister of Education, Haruna Iddrisu, who disclosed this at the 63rd Annual Conference of the Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools (CHASS), said, “Arguably, that will affect the traditional core mandate of the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund). However, we need to sustain the Free Senior High School (Free SHS) program.”

He indicated that the government would allocate GHC 300 million to end the double-track system in Senior High Schools (SHS) by 2026, explaining that the amount would be used to improve infrastructure development.

“That will greatly help the nation to bridge the existing gaps and ensure equity in the categories of ‘A’, ‘B’, and ‘C’ schools,” the Education Minister and Tamale South Member of Parliament said at the CHASS conference.

The Education Minister added that “In fact, when you have category A, B, and C second-cycle schools, you are unable to satisfy the requirement of equity and equitability, and so there is no equity.”

“If about 65 percent of all candidates are requesting for category A schools, then how are you going to cope as a Minister?”, saying “this year I have received about 60,000 requests for protocols from traditional authorities, political elites, headmasters, PTAs, and Directors General.”

“Ghanaians don’t want to hear the word protocol, yet they are requesting and demanding protocols,” the Minister for Education said.

The Minister of Education said the government was spending close to GHC5 billion to finance the FSHS programme this year and would average that to GHC5 billion in 2026.

The decision for the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) to fund the Free SHS program comes after the government uncapped GETFund to ensure the full financing of the Free Senior High School (SHS) programme.

The Minister of Finance, Dr Cassiel Ato Forson, announced this when he presented the 2025 Budget and Economic Policy of the government to Parliament.

He said the move to dedicate funding to the Free Senior High School (Free SHS) policy was to address concerns about its quality and sustainability.

To improve learning conditions, the Education Minister said the government had allocated GH¢564.6 million for free curriculum-based textbooks.

“Mr Speaker, we have also allocated an amount of GH¢564.6 million for the comprehensive provision of free curricula-based textbooks covering four sets of KG books and workbooks for about 2.8 million learners, four sets of primary textbooks for 800,000 learners, and nine sets of JHS 3 textbooks for 540,000 learners,” Dr Ato Forson said.