Former Greater Accra Regional Chairman of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Joseph Kobina Ade-Coker, has debunked claims that they opposed the government’s flagship Free Senior High School (SHS) policy.
He noted that commentaries by members of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) that the main opposition party was against the programme implementation in 2017 are absolutely false.
Chairman Ade-Coker, speaking on the Angel Morning Show on Thursday, August 15, 2024, set the record straight, stating that the NDC’s criticism and concern about the policy were rather on its long-term sustainability.
“The first thing is that my brother [Samuel Ayeh-Paye] said NDC were kicking against the Free SHS policy. We did not kick against it,” he said while responding to a comment made by a former Member of Parliament for Ayensuano Constituency.
The NDC communicator emphasized that their firm stance of the policy had always been its progressive plan.
“…We were much concerned about progressively before you implement Free SHS, you must have structures because you cannot put them under structures and you cannot not be running it under shifting system as well where you see students going to morning shift with others too in the morning, they won’t learn,” he told Okatakyie Afrifa-Mensah.
He explained adding “So we said let us do it progressively, let us put infrastructure in place so that at least students don’t travel more distance to go and learn, in this manner you are bringing the school structures more closer to where the people stay.
So that is the meaning of the progressive in which the NDC started by building the community day schools.”
