Free SHS is achieving gender parity in schools – Dr. Bawumia

Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has observed that the Free Senior High School (SHS) policy has increased enrolment in schools throughout the country. He also indicated that the policy is also achieving gender parity as more girls are enrolled in schools, something that was become a challenge. “When we came to office the President said we should implement free Senior High School and I must say that it is in the poorer communities that we are benefiting from the Free Senior High School education. In fact, the enrollment since the introduction of Free Senior High School has increased by 50%. What is also important is that more girls are enrolling into Senior High Schools and you are now getting almost gender parity between boys and girls. You’re also seeing that we are paying attention to vocational education”, he said during a courtesy call on the paramount chief of the Tumu traditional area, Kuoro Richard Babini Kanton IV. He added” our concern as a government is the development of the people and our community and since we’ve been in government our activities has been geared towards improving the lives and the livelihood of people. This is why if you look at the policies that our government has implemented; they’ve all been aimed at improving lives and livelihood. One of the biggest challenges that we’ve had in the North, in particular, has been accessing to quality education” According to Dr. Bawumia, the government has also established a TVET center to invest and retool Technical and Vocational Institutions. “We have established a centre just like we have Ghana Education Service and we are investing in many state-of-the-art Technical and Vocational Institutions and retooling them. As a government one of the biggest challenges is Youth Unemployment that we face as a nation. Since we came into the office it is one of the areas we have been watching closely. Of course, the problem of youth unemployment has not been solved but our government has created more jobs than any other government in the fourth republic”, he added.