Those Promising It Must Tell Ghanaians The Full Cost Of Implementing A Free Secondary Education Policy Over 4 Years

The New Patriotic Party's (NPP) presidential candidate, Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo,  succeeded in saving  himself from considerable embarrassment,  when he declined  to tell   the BBC's Stephen Suker, the source of funding for the implementation of his party's free secondary education policy proposal,  during his appearance on the BBC's  flagship interview programme,  Hardtalk, on 5th  March,   2012.


He did so by telling Stephen Suker that he preferred to tell the Ghanaian people first - "the fact that many Ghanaians were actually listening on radio,   and watching  the interview on television as well as online, obviously lost on him" a wag I know said to me after the event.


Perhaps Mr. Suker allowed him to get away with that  gaffe, simply  because he thought there had to be  a cultural reason for the unheard of (to a sophisticated Western media professional's mind) curiosity of a leading African politician vying for the presidency of his country,  being unable and unwilling  to reveal where exactly the money to fund a policy of free secondary education,  promised voters by his party in a presidential  election,  would be coming  from.


 Refusing to let voters know the full cost of implementing such an important a policy proposal in a widely watched  interview on television,  would have immediately destroyed Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo’s chances of being  elected  as president,    had he  been vying for power in an election campaign in any of the leading Western democracies.


Surely,  the time has now come for the more patriotic,  principled and responsible sections of the Ghanaian media, to  insist that all the nation's political parties promising voters free secondary education in Ghana,  ought to  provide  Ghanaians with more detailed information about the implementation of that policy when they win power in the December polls?


It is important that a policy proposal that clearly resonates with  an overwhelming majority of ordinary Ghanaians, is explained in practical terms,  in all its aspects - otherwise some political party could ride on its coattails to victory when in fact it would not be able to implement the policy when in office: without causing irreparable damage to the second-cycle educational  system and dislocating our national economy.


For example, how much and where  exactly  will  the funding for implementing that policy come  from - and will it be sustainable over the 4-year tenure as president of the candidate promising it?


And at what point exactly,  will a parent with two sons in say  Prempeh College and daughters each in St. Louis and Yaa Asantewaa respectively, for example, stop paying their fees -  when the presidential candidate promising free secondary education assumes office in January 2013?


And, what, dear reader,  does "free secondary education" entail for parents,  whose wards are in secondary schools across Ghana, and  currently paying for a plethora of items listed in their wards' schools' prospectus?


Will they no longer be required to pay for items    ranging from PTA  through textbooks to building-funds,  for example?


If that will be the case, then  at what point exactly ought Ghanaian parents  to expect to be told to cease  paying for all the sundry  items  listed above - when an NPP, Convention Peoples Party, Peoples National Convention   or Progressive Peoples Party (PPP) presidential candidate (all of whom are dedicated to offering some form of free secondary education to Ghanaians  )  is sworn into office as Ghana's new president, after the December 7th presidential poll?


Put simply, dear reader, Ghanaians must be told exactly how much free secondary education will cost over the 4-year tenure of the presidential candidates promising it - and from where precisely the money to pay for it will be coming. Otherwise a gigantic fraud is being perpetrated against the people of Ghana, simply to enable politicians ride to power mining a rich seam of popular expectation predicated on an absolute falsehood. A word to the wise...


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