Government has released GH¢88,056,438 for disbursement to all public Senior High Schools (SHSs) for the implementation of the free SHS programme for the 2019/2020 academic.
The amount will, however, cover only second-year students for the first semester.
The Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Prof. Kwasi Opoku-Amankwa, made this known in an interview with the Daily Graphic yesterday. He said already GHȻ61,669,394 had been released for the upkeep of third-year students for the first semester of the 2019/2020 academic year.
The third-year students have been in school since August 25, 2019 to enable them to prepare adequately for the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).
Prof. Opoku-Amankwa explained that the allocation for first-year students was available and would be released after the placement exercise was over to enable the GES management to determine how many students had been enrolled in the various schools.
On supplies, he said the schools would continue to supply uniforms to first-year students, adding that each student would be entitled to two school uniforms.
“With regard to school cloths, schools will continue to supply all students. The government, through the Ministry of Education, has entered into an arrangement with Akosombo Textiles Ltd (ATL) to supply the materials for the school cloths to dressmakers of the schools,” Prof. Opoku-Amankwa said.
He said adequate textbooks had been made available to all the schools for use by all students and asked schools that did not have adequate supply of textbooks on the four core subjects to immediately draw the attention of their respective regional and district directors to that.
