A prospectus that cost 5k. What Citizens Must do to redress Hidden Cost in Free Education- Kofi Asare.
In the past two decades, free education reviews across Africa have established that, whenever the declaration of free education was unaccompanied with the timely release of adequate funds for running schools, hidden costs emerged.
These hidden costs, justified due to the Government’s inability to finance what it declared free, and the need to keep schools running, are pushed onto parents, rich and poor, and are potentially exclusive, defeating the very essence of free education.
In Ghana, the lack of regular disbursement of the Capitation Grant (basic level), examination, sanitation, and maintenance fees (secondary) are classical examples of hidden costs that are potentially exclusive.
What citizens must do in such a situation is to compel the government to act by policy rather than support schools to impose hidden costs that are potentially exclusive to poor students.
I would rather prefer schools to close down for lack of running funds, compelling Government to do the needful, than the poor stay-at-home because they can’t honour a GHC 5,000 prospectus that has 30% hidden costs.
Source; Kofi Asare of Eduwatch.
