Free SHS branded bags out

At a ceremony at the West Africa Senior High School to launch the policy, the president described the programme as the means to creating a society of opportunities and empowerment for every citizen.

He said he made the Free SHS pledge "because I know that knowledge and talent are not for the rich and privileged alone, and that free education widens the gates of opportunities to every child, especially those whose talents are arrested because of poverty."

He noted that the countries that have made rapid progress around the world put education at the heart of their development, referencing the transition to publicly funded high school education by the United States in the mid nineteenth century.

"It must have been a daunting prospect at the time – paying for the education of so many children, for such an extended period of time out of limited public resources, transferring a potential workforce away from immediate productivity for an investment like schooling. But the experiment paid off," he said.