NDC has better strategy for development - Veep Amissah-Arthur

Dwelling on past and present achievements in the educational sector, Vice President Paa Kwesi Bekoe Amissah-Arthur says the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) has a better strategy for developing the educational sector.

He said the nation would have to find a way to finance the promised free senior high school education by other political parties, explaining that the “free” really had a price to be paid for it to be achieved.

With an analysis of the concept of Opportunity Cost in economics, the Vice President said the provision of free Senior High School education would definitely have to be paid for from other sectors of the economy, thus depriving Ghanaians of qualitative services from other equally important sectors.

Vice President Amissah-Arthur had met with students as part of a five-day campaign tour of the three Northern Regions of Ghana.

At the Wa Senior High Technical School, Vice President Amissah-Arthur commissioned several projects including a new assembly hall, an administration block and two storey girls’ dormitory, all constructed with funding from the Ghana Education Trust Fund.

Addressing staff and students later, Vice President Amissah-Arthur said free education could never take place without the necessary infrastructure

The Vice President said there were 725,000 students in public second cycle schools for the 2010/2011 and the total cost of keeping the students in school was about GHc600 million.

He said there were problems even at the basic level, where the current Ghanaian constitution stipulates that education must be free and compulsory, because of lack of facilities.

Government was therefore concentrating on the provision of facilities and conditions with that would make it possible for children to go to school and stay in the classrooms.

Aside the provision of more classrooms, the ruling NDC Government has enhanced the School Feeding Programme, providing free textbooks as well as other interventions to enhance accessibility to quality education.

“How can children concentrate in school when they are hungry? Where there are no classrooms, when it rains, it’s a holiday,” Vice President Amissah- Arthur said, adding “the current Free SHS does not provide the necessary conditions.

He said public Senior High School Education cannot be free now, because you have to pay for everything you take, and invoked the constitution to the effect that education has to be progressively free.

Vice President Amissah-Arthur said the financing of SHS education has to be subjected to a national debate.

He reiterated the commitment of the NDC Government to ensure equal and fair access to quality education, which he had featured prominently when he earlier addressed students and staff of the Wa Campus of the University for Development Studies.

He described the University as a baby of the NDC, and urged the people to vote massively for the NDC to have a “one-touch” victory on December 7 to continue to serve in the interest of the education sector.

He assured the Ghanaian electorate that the NDC has a superior strategy for development, and called on them to reject what he called “textbook economists.”

He had earlier called on the Vicar General of the Wa Diocese of the Catholic Church, who represented the Catholic Bishop of Wa, Bishop Paul Bemile, and assured the cleric to look in the suggestion to re-establish the collaboration enhance access to quality education.

Vice President Amissah-Arthur appealed to all religious organisations to continue to pray for all presidential candidates and their party leadership against any misfortune including accidents as they moved across the country campaigning.

They should also pray for peace to prevail even after the election.

The Vicar appealed to Government to improve the road network in the Municipality and its environs, refurbish and expand the Wa Regional Hospital.

Vice President Amissah-Arthur also called the leadership of the Ahmadiya Mission and Zongo Chiefs, and requested their blessings for a successful campaign and victory at the polls.