President of the Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools(CHASS), Alhaji Yacoub Abubakari has bemoaned how parents of second-cycle students assume free SHS means they do not have to provide some basic needs for their wards.
‘’Government has supplied all the textbooks for the core subjects that students need but parents are not providing their wards with the books for their elective courses and that is making it difficult’’ he stated.
Alhaji Yacoub Abubakari made these revelations in an interview with Samuel Eshun, on the ‘’Happy Morning Show (HMS) on Happy FM.
‘’Some parents do not even provide their wards with calculators and mathematical sets. They think the free SHS will cater for all these things. Parents are simply misunderstanding the free SHS policy’’ he said.
According to him if the payment of the Free SHS grant for the third term of the 2020/2021 academic year delays two weeks after school reopens; it will create serious financial challenges for Second-cycle schools across the country.
‘’We are currently relying on funds government released to us in December but if we do not get grants in two weeks, it will be difficult to run the school effectively. Government has assured us that suppliers have started distributing food items in some schools across the country. The funds we need is for perishables and for the administrative running of the schools’’ he said.
Join the trio, Samuel Eshun, Fati Shaibu-Ali and Raymond Nyamador on Happy Morning Show every weekday (Monday to Friday) 5:30am to 9:00am.
By: Bridget Mensah
