Former South African President F.W. de Klerk has volunteered critical advice to the New Patriotic Party (NPP) flagbearer, Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo-Addo on his flagship free education policy.

According to the South African statesman, the key consideration for any free educational policy should be quality: “The emphasis should be on quality education and not let lack of money stand in the way of any child to reach his or her full potential,” he told DAILY GUIDE on the sideline of a public forum organized by the Institute of Economic Affairs on Monday, where he was the guest speaker.

He also acknowledged how difficult it was to implement functional educational policies because education tended to compete with other budgetary priorities in every government: “Free education is not always possible to achieve, because it depends on money, it depends also on other budget priorities,” he noted.

F.W. de Klerk’s presentation at the IEA focused on the challenges facing the development of Africa and the practical steps needed to be taken to transform the fortunes of the troubled continent.

The past South African leader who was instrumental to the dismantling of apartheid in that country said, “Africa must change its attitude to human development; it must continue to catch up to the rest of the world in terms of education.”

According to him, African countries must work towards doubling the percentage of children who went to high school and university.

“I believe that Africa is capable of accepting these challenges-and Ghana, once again, is showing the way,” noted the Nobel laureate.

The NPP said its major policy penned for implementation if voted into power in December 2012, was education and from September 2013 education from the kindergarten to the senior high school level would be free. Already, calculations made by the research team of the party put the budget requirement for this ambitious programme at over GH¢280 million annually until 2016.

Deputy Communications Director of the NPP Sammy Awuku, told DAILY GUIDE that the transformational agenda of the NPP was hinged on facilitating a knowledge based economy.

According to him, the NPP flagbearer has made education his topmost priority because he has realized that a bulk of the human resources in the country lacked the requisite skills necessary to transform Ghana’s economy.