The Effect of Free Senior High School Policy on the Lives of Parents and Wards in Ghana

Abstract

The free senior high school policy is one of best social and economic intervention policies that openly affect both parents and their wards in senior high school. This realization is reached on the backdrop of the policy’s role in redeeming parents from their economic and financial burden. This study therefore looks at the effect of introducing the free senior high school policy on the economic and social lives of parents and students respectively. A correlational cross-sectional descriptive design was used. Questionnaires were administered on three hundred and thirty-six(336) parents of wards in three senior high schools in the North East and Upper East Regions of Ghana. The study confirms that the introduction of the free senior high school policy relieved the financial burden of parents, especially guardians from rural settlements. Besides, there was lack of adequate stakeholder consultation, hence saddled with implementation challenges. Delay in disbursement of funds for feeding and learning materials presented yet another problem. It is important that governments find sustainable sources of funding the educational system and also ensure the double-track system is regularized into a single-track system by expanding academic user facilities and increasing the numerical strength of both teaching and non-teaching staff in various senior high schools.