Calls for the review of the Free SHS Policy continue to gain ground, with the latest to make this case is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Ghana Association of Banks (GAB), John Awuah, who strongly believes the policy must be targeted.
John Awuah is convinced that Ghana could save as much as GHS600 million every year if the Free Senior High School (Free SHS) policy is refined to focus only on genuinely needy students.
In his advice to the Minister of Finance ahead of the 2026 National Budget, the banker urged the government to review the Free SHS policy to make it more fiscally sustainable and socially just, arguing that universal coverage without targeting is economically unsustainable and inequitable.
While many Ghanaians agree that Free SHS has improved access to education, there is growing concern about how to ensure that the limited national purse is directed to those who truly need it.
The Case for Targeting
Although many concerned Ghanaians and institutions have earlier supported the need for the policy to be targeted at the needy.
However, the biggest challenge, policymakers admit, is the lack of credible data to separate the poor from the well-off. But it appears that finally, there may be a practical solution in sight,
John Awuah’s proposal offers a practical, immediately implementable solution. He indicates that the government can begin by excluding students whose parents can clearly afford to pay.
His criteria for determining this are the fees paid by these parents for their wards while in Junior High School. To him, any parent who was able to afford a fee of GHC2000 per term for the child clearly has the means to pay for SHS education. With this criterion, he believes the policy can be well targeted to minimize he cost on the government’s purse.
“For a start, and in the absence of credible data to inform filtering of beneficiaries, you may exclude students from JHSs who were paying more than GHS2,000 per term as school fees from the Free SHS policy. Their parents and guardians must only see it as a continuation of the fee payment from JHS,” he proposed.
Saving GHS600 Million Without Denying the Needy
According to his calculations, excluding such students would immediately remove about 30% of current beneficiaries from the Free SHS programme. This, he says, translates into savings of roughly GHS600 million, or 30% of the GHS2 billion annual expenditure on Free SHS.
For him, those excluded are not the children of the poor. Their parents were already paying substantial fees at the JHS level.
He said, “In my rough calculation, that should immediately exclude about 30% of the current beneficiaries. That should save us about 30% of the approximately GHS2 billion we spend on free SHS every year. That saves the country GHS600 million.”
The Need for a Database for Smarter Targeting
Looking ahead, the CEO of GAB is advising that the government and the schools should develop a comprehensive database of students’ economic backgrounds to better inform the selection of beneficiaries.
Such data, he said, would enable the Ministry of Education and the Ghana Education Service to refine eligibility criteria over time.
“In the long run, every school must build a solid database of needy students. That will allow us to design a fair and transparent filtering system,” he added.
The Bottomline
John Awuah’s proposal aligns with his broader call for fiscal discipline and value-for-money spending, which he has consistently championed in recent policy discussions.
He argues that Ghana’s economic recovery depends on redirecting funds from universal freebies to strategic, high-impact interventions, in this case, supporting industries that create jobs while ensuring that education remains accessible to the poor.
The proposal has sparked conversation among concerned Ghanaians who see it as a balanced middle ground between full subsidy and complete withdrawal. It keeps education accessible for the poor while saving hundreds of millions that can be reinvested into the economy.
