By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.

The logic behind the anti-free Senior High School education argument by the Head-Pastor of the International Central Gospel Church is what makes Pastor Mensah Otabil’s take on Nana Akufo-Addo’s proposition on the bleak and damning state of contemporary Ghanaian basic education incontrovertibly pathetic and risible, to speak much less of the downright regressive (See “NPP: We Respect Otabil’s View on Free Education But We Disagree” MyJoyOnline.com 10/29/12).

In fact, the first caveat should have been for Pastor Otabil to have informed his audience, beforehand, that as a private entrepreneur in the field of for-profit education, he is primarily pleading his own cause – as well as those of his ilk – when the ICGC Head-Pastor pontifically impugns the feasibility of the Akufo-Addo Plan. In other words, Pastor Otabil stands to remarkably lose out on the profitability of his for-profit run schools, should Nana Akufo-Addo’s proposition become a resounding success.

It is also interesting and significant to observe that Pastor Otabil is not the first private-school owner and/or operator to inveigh against the New Patriotic Party’s fee-free SHS proposition. At any rate, what makes a fee-free Ghanaian public education worthy of massive national support is the fact that until now, it continues to be the best of its kind available, both in terms of cost and quality. For instance, to-date, none of the privately established higher educational institutions can boast of qualitative competence that rivals the likes of the University of Ghana, Science and Technology, Cape Coast and even the University College of Education at Winneba and any of its satellites in the totality of what these seminal institutions have to offer the Ghanaian student across the disciplines.

And at the Senior High School level, there have yet to emerge any remarkable rivals to such top-tier mini-academies as Mfantsipim, St. Peter’s Secondary School, Prempeh College, Achimota, Wesley Girls’, Adisadel and Presec, among a slew of others of great national repute. And almost every one of these leading SHSes is government-assisted. And so precisely how a full-government commitment to these already government-run institutions stands to grievously erode curricular quality and pedagogy has yet to be credibly explained by people like the ICGC Head-Pastor.

Indeed, as Nana Akomea, the communications director of the New Patriotic Party, aptly pointed out, there is absolutely no forensically sustainable evidence indicating that the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) is far more interested in the palpable improvement in the quality of Ghanaian public education than, in generously and recklessly paying out scandalously and flagrantly huge sums of public money to largely undeserved recipients in the form of judgment-debt awards. And their public record on this score is there for all to see.

To be certain, if he weren’t far more interested in staunchly preserving the status quo, perhaps so as to guarantee the remarkable enlargement of the profit margins of his private educational enterprises, Pastor Otabil would have been vigorously arguing against the morally and legally untenable NDC industrial policy of wanton judgment-debt payouts in order to ensure affordability and accessibility of the kind of public educational institutions that made him the respectable and distinguished Ghanaian citizen that he is today.

As for the ICGC Head-Pastor’s vacuous logic that providing a fee-free education would necessitate that the Government forthwith ceases collecting taxes, it is just that – vacuous logic. For, needless to say, even a non-college Ghanaian graduate fully appreciates the glaring fact that taxes are primarily collected to ensure the smooth-running of the State at all levels of endeavor, and governance, and not simply to guarantee the nation the imperative development of a well-educated and well-rounded generation of youths poised to moving Ghana steadily towards the enviable status of an advanced and technologically equipped economy, in order to further enable the country to maximize its human and natural resources.

So far, there is no scientifically verifiable evidence that the Mahama-led National Democratic Congress has either the desire and/or the will of driving our beloved nation in the foregoing direction. To be certain, barely a fortnight ago, Mr. Fiifi Kwetey, the deputy finance minister of the Mahama-Arthur administration, was widely quoted to be categorically asserting that a qualitative fee-free Senior High School education couldn’t be farther from the top items on the to-do list of the government of the National Democratic Congress. And this is all the more reason why the NDC ought to be unreservedly and resoundingly voted out of office and out of power!

*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D., is Associate Professor of English, Journalism and Creative Writing at Nassau Community College of the State University of New York, Garden City. He is Director of The Sintim-Aboagye Center for Politics and Culture and author of “Ghanaian Politics Today” (Lulu.com, 2008). E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net. ###