Executive Director for Africa Education Watch, Kofi Asare, has said that government’s ability to fund a free tertiary education policy can only be possible if it secures a loan for the policy.
He, however, notes that will only become a burden on Ghanaians as taxes will increase to pay back this loan.
According to him, already, the free SHS policy is taking a huge sum of the education budget when there are only about 1.2 million children benefitting from that level as compared to the over 6 million children at the basic level.
Speaking in an interview with Samuel Eshun on e.TV Ghana’s ‘Fact Sheet’, he reasoned: “Funding of tertiary education is never the challenge because government can decide to go for loans and fund free tertiary and tax the people.
It is possible for government to go take a loan and then come and pay the fees of about 500,000 students. Let’s assume that number will increase by about 10 percent. It is possible for government to go for a loan tomorrow because we have been borrowing. So, the issue is not about the possibility. It is about the cost. But the question is, at what expense will that happen”.
Kofi Asare added that if government were to fund the free tertiary education policy, the basic education sector which is entitled to about 35 percent of the education budget will greatly suffer.
Background
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has said the government is considering free education at the tertiary level, following the successful implementation of the free senior high school (SHS) policy.
He said the free SHS policy had resulted in some 400,000 more children getting access to SHS education in the country, with the government addressing the infrastructure challenges that came with the policy.
“So in Ghana, we’ve taken the decision that we’re going full scale ahead, now that we have widened public education at the secondary school level for all and sundry, to try and replicate it at the tertiary level too,” he said.
President Akufo-Addo gave the hint at the Global Education Summit, co-hosted by the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, and the Kenyan President, Uhuru Kenyatta, in London.