Communications Specialist, Shirley Tony Kum, has criticized parents who reward their children with luxury items after completing Free Senior High School (SHS) education.
In a social media post, Tony Kum called out the practice of gifting cars to students who benefited from the government’s fee-free policy.
“Your child benefited from Free SHS education, and upon completion, you reward him or her with a car?” she wrote. “Indeed not every child deserves free SHS.”
Her comments follow recent scenes at school premises where parents and loved ones of WASSCE graduates marked the end of exams with elaborate celebrations, including motorcades, cash gifts, and luxury presents.
The displays have sparked public debate about whether such extravagance contradicts the intent of the Free SHS policy.
Introduced in 2017, the Free SHS policy was designed to remove financial barriers to secondary education by absorbing tuition and other fees for all Ghanaian students in public second-cycle schools.
Tony Kum’s post has since drawn mixed reactions online.
