He said the if measures are not taken to make the policy a targeted one, it will collapse in the next ten years.

The former Minority Leader argued that students whose parents can pay for their education at the senior high school level should be made to pay while it remains free for the poor.

The Tamale South MP indicated that organizations like UNESCO have all advised on the matter which the government has ignored for political expediency.

“Mr. Speaker, we are doing what we ought to have done several years back, UNESCO was established somewhere 95 and Ghana has benefited enormously from them. Ghana needs to take advantage of UNESCO’s advice on secondary education. How accessible is it, what is the quality, are we running a secondary education that produces quantity and not quality?

“Ghana needs a test mechanism to determine who can pay and who cannot pay. This political thing of wanting to please everybody at the detriment of quality will hang in this country in the next decade if we don’t look back,” he stated.

Recently, the Minister of Educatio, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum disclosed that the government spent over GHS5 billion on the programme from 2017 to 2021.

Answering questions from ranking member for education committee Peter Nortsu Kotoe and other MPs in Parliament, Mr. Adutwum further disclosed the amount falls short of the over Ghc7 billion cedis approved budgetary allocation of the ministry for the program.

“For the period under review that is 2017 to 2021 the Ministry of Finance approved allocation for the implementation of the Free Senior High School Program amounted to Ghc7,623,783, 450.

“During the period under review the Ministry of Finance released a total amount of Ghc5,182,205,131.91 to the Ministry of Education for the execution of the free Senior High School program. The total expenditure for the period amounted Ghc5,119,794,501.20,” he stated.

The Education Minister also warned that the government is considering closing down non-performing schools across the country.