The government will spend GH₵453 million ($103m) of the country’s oil revenue to fund the free senior high school programme this year.
The amount is more than twice the figure it spent on the programme last year, some GH₵198 million ($45m).
The Minister of Energy, Boakye Agyarko, disclosed this in Houston, Texas last Tuesday at a special roundtable meeting with some oil giants at the ongoing Offshore Technology Conference (OTC).
The free SHS programme is the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP)’s flagship education programme.
In January this year, the government released GH₵35.9 million to cover second term operational and administrative costs for public second cycle schools under the Free SHS programme.
Head of Communications at the Free SHS Secretariat of the Ministry of Education, Josberta Gyan Kwakye, said the amount would cover about 489 schools.
She also explained that the initial 20 percent sent to the schools in September 2017 “was based on raw estimations because as of the time we were releasing the funds, we didn’t have the exact
enrollment numbers, so it was more of an approximation.”
She said the Ministry has also paid GH₵3,392,031 as arrears for 264 schools during the first term.