The Minister for Education, Dr. Mathew Opoku Prempeh affectionately called NAPO has denied claims that the New Patriotic Party(NPP) promised to build 350 Senior High Schools (SHSs) while in opposition.
According to him, nowhere in the party’s 2012 and 2016 did they promise to build 350 schools from the scratch like the NDC is claiming they did.
“The people in NDC are saying that Nana Addo said he will build 350 schools. They should tell me the book they found that in. Our manifesto for 2012 and 2016 are there, they should show me the page on which that can be found. We never said we will build 350 schools , infact there is nowhere in the 2016 manifesto that we said we were going to build schools,” he said in an interview on Accra-based Asempa FM which was monitored by MyNews.
His current stance is however is in sharp contrast made by the Communications Director of the NPP, Nana Akomea in March 2016.
He had revealed that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) says it will build 350 day Senior High Schools (SHS) from 2017 if the party wins power in this year’s general elections.
“This whole idea of John Mahama saying I will build 200 schools was in reaction to Nana Addo’s plan to build 350-day schools as part of the free SHS agenda. So John Mahama also brought this thing that I am also going to build schools, it wasn’t part of their initial plan,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Education Minister said only 29 of the 124 E-blocks promised by the John Dramani Mahama administration were built although they had signed contracts for all the 124 school buildings.
He indicated that the NPP administration had to come in and with the short term in government, the party has been able to build and complete 28 of the E-Blocks and will add one before the end of the year 2020.
The Minister said there are some places where the schools may need a boarding facility and since government does not want the buildings to go waste, it has taken it upon itself to add boarding houses to make the school attractive to children in the community and nearby communities.
