UNICEF Executive Director Commends President Akufo-Addo For Free SHS
The Executive Director of the United Nations International
Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Mrs. Henrietta Holsman Fore, has commended
the President of the Republic, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, for the
decision taken in September 2017 to introduce the Free Senior High
School Policy.
According to Mrs. Fore, “If I may pay homage to President
Akufo-Addo, having free secondary school is probably the greatest gift
you can give to a family and a girl. It then encourages the girl to not
be considered lesser in her family, and it encourages her to go to
school.”
The UNICEF Executive Director explained that “if a girl
can go to school, then there are so many other benefits. There are
health benefits. She does not become a young mother, and become a young
bride. Half of the maternal deaths are because the mothers are just too
young, there are adolescents, and they are children with children. The
benefits (of free secondary education) to a society are immense. For
girls, we see that it is probably the single most important area for a
government to bring up.”
Mrs. Henrietta Fore made this known, on Friday, 27th
April, 2018, at high level event to mark the achievement the Education
Above All Foundation to enrol ten million children to receive quality
primary school education across the world.
President Akufo-Addo, who attended the event in his
capacity as co-Chair of the Group of Advocates of Eminent Persons of the
United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), stated, in his
remarks, at the event, that there is no part of the world that does not
recognise the importance of education.
“We have all accepted that education is the best route to
moving out of poverty. Today's youth, running barefoot to school, could
be a future leader of the arts, business, government, industry or
sports,” he said.
President Akufo-Addo told the gathering that his father,
“lost both parents at a tender age. But through perseverance and
borrowing money from a relative, he burnt the midnight oil to end up as a
barrister, and become the outstanding figure that he was in Ghana.
Indeed, at the time I was born, my dad was still paying off monies
borrowed from that helpful relative.”
With 63 million children in the world, between the ages of
6 to 11, currently out of school, President Akufo-Addo noted that EAA
and UNICEF will help bridge that gap, and draw us closer to the
realisation of Sustainable Development Goal No. 4, which enjoins us to
help ensure inclusive and equitable quality education, and promote
lifelong learning opportunities for all.
“For us in Ghana, the Capitation Grant, introduced some 13
years ago, under the administration of that far-sighted Ghanaian
statesman, His Excellency John Agyekum Kufuor, the 2nd President of
Ghana’s 4th Republic, is, presently, enabling six million, three hundred
and seventy one thousand, nine hundred and seventy five (6,371,975)
school-going children, representing some 90% of school-going children in
Ghana, to enjoy fee-free education in our basic schools,” he said.
The President continued, “The Free Senior High School
Policy, introduced for the first time by my Government in September last
year, has put ninety thousand (90,000) more students into Senior High
School in 2017, than in 2016. Our goal is to guarantee every Ghanaian
child a minimum of secondary school education. It is the hope of every
mother and father, not only in Ghana, that education will help their
children escape poverty, and provide them the avenue to a good life.”
On behalf of the ten million children, who are being
afforded the opportunity to sit in a classroom, and chart their own path
for the future, President Akufo-Addo said “thank you, once again, to
Her Royal Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, Education Above All and
UNICEF.”
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