The Minister for Education, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, has posited that free education existed way before the government’s flagship Free Senior High School (SHS) policy was introduced in 2017 through the Otumfuo Osei Tutu II Foundation, the Non-Governmental Organisation of the King of the Asante Kingdom, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II.
Chronicling some educational interventions of the King while speaking at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), during the culmination of the Chancellor’s Week celebration, the Minister stated that potentials and destinies have been unlocked to the benefit of the country.
According to him, people who by no fault of theirs were born into underprivileged families would have had their potential curtailed forever to the disadvantage of the country, but for His Majesty.
“Before Free Senior High School, you gave them free senior high school. The Otumfuo Foundation provided so much support for students with no money. You even went beyond the Asante Kingdom to the rest of the country because you are truly a father of the whole nation. Many young men and women have become lawyers, engineers, teachers and doctors because you offered them a lifeline.
“Those who had no hope of going to Senior High School and beyond went beyond because you had a vision that every young man and woman should be given the core opportunity and that we need to create a more equitable society where there is no gap between the advantaged and the disadvantaged where all Ghanaians could come together, create a more cohesive society.”
He also spoke of Asantehene’s intervention that led to the release of a World Bank grant of close to ¢200,000,000 to reform education in Ghana.
The Minister, alluding to the upbringing of His Majesty hailed the compassion it imbibed in him.
“Your upbringing has enabled you to identify the common man. When you shared your story about your journey to Sefwi Wiawso, I said to myself, there is a young man who could have gone to Prempeh College with no inhibition. In my case, I went to Jachie Pramso because that was the only place I could go. But someone who could have gone to Prempeh was not sent there. It was as if he was being prepared to understand the ordinary man. You had a golden spoon which you could have used but you were given a wooden spoon.”
Source: Manhyia Palace
