Director of Operations for the FixingTheCountry movement, Hopeson Adorye, has predicted that very soon President Nana Akufo-Addo will be hailed as the next Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana.
He reasoned that even though the late former President, Kwame Nkrumah introduced free education in some parts of the country, people massively hailed him. However, President Akufo-Addo introduced free education in the whole country.
Speaking in an interview with Happy FM’s Sefa Danquah on the ‘Epa Hoa Daben’ show, he stated: “Fixing the country is a gradual process. Very soon Akufo-Addo’s name will be mentioned like how Kwame Nkrumah was hailed because of his free SHS. His free education policy was limited to some parts of the country. But for Akufo-Addo, it is unprecedented.”
Hopeson Adorye was of the view that under President Nana Addo, a lot of problems inherited from the previous government have been fixed. He, therefore, urged Ghanaians to be patient with this government as it continues to fix the country.
The Free Education Policy was introduced in Northern Ghana by the British colonialists and maintained by Dr Kwame Nkrumah, the first President of Ghana, after independence. The policy was to help bridge the development gap between the then Northern territories which now comprise the five regions of the north (Northern, Upper East, Upper West, Savannah and North East regions) and the south, formerly called the Gold Coast.
Years after, President Nana Akufo-Addo, as a flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) since 2008, promised to make Senior High School education free. His promise was described by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) as unattainable.
But in 2017, the free senior high school education policy was introduced. That year, there was an 11% increase in enrolment, breaking records from previous years. In the 2017/18 academic year, a new record was set with the highest enrolment ever seen in the country: over 470,000 students enrolled in senior high school.