Gomoa Central MP Kwame 'A Plus' Asare Obeng has offered his thoughts on the heated debate over the senior high school (SHS) requirement for students to cut their hair.

In a Facebook post, he underlined that Ghana's educational system was a free market, which offered alternatives for parents, guardians and students to pick from based on their preferences, and economic strengths. 

A-Plus asked his readers to consider that private and public schools did not have the same rules, giving wards a unique mix of freedoms and restrictions to choose from.

He composed his post in his usual tongue-in-cheek fashion, and echoed some sentiments expressed across the major divides of the debate on social media, while pointing to available options.

"Don't cut your kid's hair. That nonsense must stop," he noted one sentiment, and offered in response: "Take your kids to GIS [Ghana International School, then]."

"You can't pay GIS?" he asked, adding: "Cut the "nonsense" hair and go for free [senior high school]!"

The Free Senior High School (FSHS) programme was introduced in 2017.

The popular socio-political activist's comments highlighted the power of choice in exploring freedoms available to citizens of the fourth republic.

Some citizens, including culture diplomat and YouTuber Wode Maya, have argued the hair-cutting requirement in public schools was a colonial relic designed to humiliate Africans, and, therefore, had to be abolished without debate.

Others, like the Education Minister Haruna Iddrisu, have responded by noting that the hair-cutting requirement was an issue of discipline and character enhancement rather. They said it took the students' attention from the not-so-easy and costly routines of hair grooming, allowing them to focus on the primary concerns of their education. For them, the rule taught students the place of submitting to authority, understanding of abstinence and discipline, and recognising there was time for everything; and so while they were cutting their hair now, they would soon be at liberty to do with their hair whatever they pleased after graduation.

When Mr Iddrisu spoke at Mawuli School's 75th anniversary celebration, he emphasised the rule was nonnegotiable, empowering enforcement by public school authorities and the Ghana Education Service (GES).