Dr. Clement Abas Apaak, Member of Parliament for Builsa South and Deputy Ranking Member on the Education Committee, has called on the Deputy Minister of Education to immediately retract a fraudulent advertisement claiming that over 5 million students have benefited from the Free Senior High School (FSHS) programme from 2017 to 2024.
In a scathing statement, Dr. Apaak condemned the claim as “blatant lies,” asserting that the number of beneficiaries cannot exceed the actual number of enrolled students.
According to Fact-Check Ghana, fewer than 3.2 million students have enrolled in the programme over the past seven years, not the exaggerated figure of 5 million reported by the DMB.
Dr. Apaak, also the NDC Spokesperson on Education, challenged the Deputy Minister to correct the misleading information and apologize to the Ghanaian public.
“How can the number of FSHS beneficiaries be more than the total number of students enrolled?” he questioned. “This kind of deceit must be condemned in the strongest terms.”
Referencing data provided by Fact-Check Ghana, Dr. Apaak pointed out that the total number of FSHS students enrolled from 2017 to 2024 is 3,135,754, much lower than the inflated figure claimed in the advertisement.
He further noted that even if WAEC’s WASSCE entry statistics were used, the actual number of students completing the programme would be less than 2.5 million, as not all enrolled students go on to sit the exams.
“We deserve a leader who tells the truth, not someone who promotes falsehoods to mislead Ghanaians,” Dr. Apaak stated, urging the Deputy Minister to remove the advertisement immediately and issue an apology to the public.
