The Ghana National Association of Private Schools (GNAPS) has described as exorbitant, charges slapped on Low-Cost Private Schools (LCPS) by some state regulatory agencies.
It said the new levy is suffocating and crippling their operations.
Mrs Florence Pul, Northern Regional Chairperson of GNAPS, who raised the concerns, said the situation was negatively impacting education delivery for children in LCPSs.
She raised the concerns while addressing this year’s GNAPS Week Celebration in Tamale on the theme: “Education is a Right: Stakeholders must support Low-Cost Private Schools.”
The event, which began with a float by some private school students and their teachers from the Tamale Metropolitan Directorate of Education to GNAT Hall in Tamale, was attended by some proprietors, proprietresses, representatives from the Ghana Education Service and some students.
The GNAPS Week is celebrated every year to recognise and appreciate the invaluable contributions of private schools in the country’s educational landscape.
Mrs Pul said some private schools, especially LCPSs were social intervention policies aimed at providing education in communities where there was no access to quality education.
She said every social intervention policy that targeted the poor and marginalised must be supported by government, arguing that “So, how come Government is not assisting LCPSs? Perhaps, the Ministry of Education (MoE) and its agencies do not seem to appreciate the crucial role of LCPSs and private schools in educating the Ghanaian child.”
She added that, “On the contrary, these agencies, namely the National Schools Inspectorate Authority (NASIA), the National Teaching Council (NTC) and the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NaCCA) are suffocating LCPSs with exorbitant charges for providing services, which, in some cases, ought to be free.”
She said, “In the current harsh economic situation when parents are unable to afford even the extremely low fees charged by these schools, exorbitant charges from NASIA, NTC, NaCCA, the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), and various Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies are crippling quality education delivery to children in LCPSs.”
Mrs Pul said many children in LCPSs, who were unable to pay WAEC’s BECE charges, ended up curtailing their education in Junior High School form three (JHS 3) adding “Let’s take a child, who attends Green Light Academy in the North East Region, who pays GH¢60,00 a term as school fees. When such a child gets to JHS 3, and his parents are asked to cough up GH¢170.10 (that excludes registration charges) just to write BECE, the parents may withdraw such a child from the school to become a farm hand or tend cattle.”
She further touched on the new placement regime saying, “What bothers private schools is that, when parents manage to pay WAEC’s exorbitant BECE charges for their children to sit the examination, such children may be denied placement into the Category A schools that they deserve.”
“There is a monster called 30 per cent Priority Placement Policy, which reserves for public schools, 30% of all available vacancies in Category A schools, before the rest of the 70% vacancies are allocated on merit to both public and private schools. GNAPS has said repeatedly that this unfair and corrupt system of determining, which child enters Category A SHS must be abolished.”
She appealed to the MoE and its agencies for support saying, “Rather than suffocating LCPSs with astronomical charges, state agencies must nurse these struggling schools to grow, mature and provide quality education.”
She said, “The MoE must support LCPSs in the same way that it assists public schools. Both types of schools have the same objective of offering all Ghanaian children, irrespective of social status, opportunities for accessing quality education. Government could even decongest some overpopulated public schools by offloading children from these schools into LCPSs and paying a bursary of just GH¢100.00 per child per term to the schools to help train such children.”
Mrs Pul also appealed to the MoE to absorb BECE registration and National Standardised Test fees for children attending LCPSs and subsidise same for all other private schools.
Hajia Mrs Katumi Natogmah Attah, Northern Regional Director of Education, touched on the invaluable roles played by private schools in the country saying, “Private schools are pillars of knowledge, nurturing environments where young minds are cultivated, encouraged, and empowered to reach their full potential.”
She emphasised that “It is on this note I support the call for all stakeholders to support our low-cost private schools. As the Regional Director of Education with the bragging rights as the second female Regional Director and the first female Regional Director of Education to hail from the Northern region, I pledge my support to this agenda.”
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