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On August 18, 2024, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) launched its manifesto for the 2024 general election in the Western Region.
In his remarks in the manifesto, the party’s National Chairman, Stephen Ntim, states that the total number of Senior High School (SHS) students who have benefited from the Free SHS policy is 5.7 million.
“Increased access to 5.7 million young adults to secondary education through the flagship Free Senior High /Technical and Vocational Educational and Training (SHS/TVET),” according to his remarks in the party’s manifesto.
Five months before the party published Mr Ntim’s statement, President Akufo-Addo and the Minister of Education, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum had provided contradictory figures about the Free SHS beneficiaries on the same platform, on the same day.
During the launch of the Smart Schools Project on March 25, 2024, the president said “5.1 million children have so far benefitted from the Free SHS programme since it was instituted in September 2017.”
But on the same platform, Dr Adutwum said “today, some 5.7 million children who are our own children, brothers, and sisters have benefited from the programme.” The minister’s figure indicated that 600,000 more students had benefited from the policy, higher than what the president mentioned.
In a community engagement in Amasan in the Ga West Municipality in September 2024, Dr Mahamud Bawumia also said that the Free SHS programme has benefitted 5.7 million children with enrolment increasing from 800,000 to 1.4 million now. He added that it is difficult to get housemaids in Accra because of Free SHS.
With about a month to the elections, the NPP has rolled out a campaign advert on several media platforms, further affirming the claim that “over five million children have benefitted from Free SHS.”
Fact-Check Ghana has verified the NPP’s claim and presents the facts below.
Claim: “Increased access to 5.7 million young adults to secondary education through the flagship Free Senior High School/Technical and Vocational Education and Training (SHS/TVET) policy.”
Verdict: Completely False
Explanation:
On Thursday, July 18, 2018, the former Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta presented to parliament the 2018 Mid-Year Policy Review of that year’s budget.
He told the House that due to the implementation of the Free SHS Policy, an additional 90,000 students who would have dropped out of school now had access to secondary education. He added that as at July 18, 2018, almost a year after the implementation of the policy, over 350,000 first year students were benefiting from the initiative.
“Currently, a total of 362,118 first year students from all public SHS are benefiting from the programme. This is made up of 177,692 day students and 244,426 boarding students,” he said.
Fact-Check Ghana has examined the Mid-Year Fiscal Policy Review of the Budget Statements from 2018 to 2024. Outlined in the Mid-Year Policy Reviews are the enrolment figures for each academic year since the policy was launched.
Below is a table that summarises Free SHS enrolment figures from 2017 to 2024 according to the Mid-Year Fiscal Policy Review of the Budget Statements:
| Year (Mid-Year Budget Statement) | Academic Year | Total First-Year Enrolment |
| 2018 | 2017/2018 (Cohort 1) | 362,118 |
| 2019 | 2018/2019 (Cohort 2) | 432,791 |
| 2020 | 2019/2020 (Cohort 3) | 404,851 |
| 2021 | 2020/2021 (Cohort 4) | 423,320 |
| 2022 | 2021/2022 (Cohort 5) | 555,353 |
| 2023 | 2022/2023 (Cohort 6) | 447,396 |
| 2024 | 2023/2024 (Cohort 7) | 509,925 |
| Total Beneficiaries | 3,135,754 | |
From the data above, the total beneficiaries of the Free SHS policy from 2017 to 2024 are 3,135,754. This figure is 2,564,246 lower than the 5.7 million mentioned by the Chairman of the NPP and the Minister of Education. It is also 1,964,246 less than President Akufo-Addo’s claim that 5,100,000 students have benefited from the policy.
Also, although President Akufo-Addo said on March 25, 2024, that “some 503,000 children entered Senior High Schools this year [2023/2024 academic year], the highest ever enrolment of children into Senior High Schools in a single year in our history,” the 2022 Mid-Year budget review states otherwise when it references the enrolment number of the 2021/2022 academic year.
Speaking in parliament on Monday, July 25, 2022, Mr Ofori-Atta said “Out of the 571,892 registered JHS candidates, 555,353, representing 97.1 percent, were placed into SHS this year.”
This shows that the 509,925 first year students who entered public SHSs in the 2023/2024 academic year were 45,428 less compared to their colleagues who enrolled in the 2021/2022 academic year.
Moreover, President Akufo-Addo’s claim that the 503,000 first year students who entered SHS this academic year is the highest ever in Ghana’s history, creates a major doubt about the veracity of the purported 5.7 million beneficiaries of the Free SHS policy. Fact-Check Ghana multiplied 503,000 by seven, which is the number of first year batches that have benefited from the Free SHS policy since its implementation. It was equal to 3,521,000. That is still 2,179,000 lower than 5.7 million.
Based on the data from the Mid-Year Fiscal Policy Review of the Budget Statements from 2018 to 2024, the claims by the NPP’s National Chairman, the Minister of Education and President Akufo-Addo that over five million students have benefited from the Free SHS/TVET policy is completely false.
The cumulative count of beneficiaries of Free SHS is inaccurate- Africa Education Watch
In February 2024, Africa Education Watch, a leading education policy research and advocacy organisation, published its report “The Financial Burden Analysis of the Free SHS and Implications for Equitable Access”. The report which analysed the financial burden sharing between the government and parents on the free SHS policy put the number of beneficiaries since the inception of the programme at 2.5 million as of the 2022/2023 academic year. This is consistent with Fact-Check Ghana’s analysis which reports that about 3 million children have benefited from the initiative as of the 2023/2024 academic year.
Fact-Check Ghana has also noted that in the 2024 Mid-Year Budget Statement, the Finance Minister said that “a cumulative total of 5.7 million young people have benefitted from this initiative”.
While the minister did not provide the breakdown of the cumulative total, the figure attempts to count individual beneficiaries of the free SHS programme three times throughout the three years when they benefit from the initiative. However, experts like the Executive Director of Africa Education Watch disagree.
“[Using the cumulative argument] It is double counting. They are using the word enrolled or benefited. When a student enters the free senior school, the student is given a unique number. It is based on that unique number that the student’s school fees is paid. If you are a day student an amount is paid, if you are a boarder a different amount, which is higher, is paid. The reason why you cannot switch from day to boarder is because the money which is being paid from the Centre is tied to your unique number.
“So you enrolled on the system once. And the system doesn’t give room for repetition. So how do you say someone enrolled in form one and enrolled again in form two? Because of that, you can’t say that 5 million people have enrolled so far.”
He continued, “Now if you want to use the word benefitted, in the same way, Kofi Asare enters in form one and he schooled for three years. How can you say three people have benefitted because Kofi Asare benefitted for three years?”
Mr Asare added that the number of beneficiaries the government is mentioning is a mistake that first emerged in the 2024 budget reading which his outlet, Africa Education Watch, issued a statement to debunk.
In conclusion, claims that free SHS has benefitted over 5 million children are false and inconsistent with the enrolment data presented in the Mid-Year budget statements. Also, the cumulative counting of the beneficiaries is double counting and inaccurate.
This fact-check report was produced with the support of Full Fact AI.
