Govt cautions PTAs not to over burden parents

Cape Coast, Oct 18, GNA - The government has commended Parent/Teacher Associations (PTAs) for complementing the government's efforts in providing facilities for schools, especially second-cycle schools, but cautioned them against forcing parents to do things they were not ready to do.

Mr Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwah, a Deputy Minister of Information, sounded the caution at a press briefing at Cape Coast at the weekend. The Deputy Minister said the government had noted with concern the high demands being made on parents by some school authorities who were hiding behind some PTA executives to solve the current infrastructure problems facing public second-cycle schools.

"The problems of the schools are not the making of parents therefore they must not be forced to solve them," Mr Ablakwah said and added that the constructions going on in the schools were being funded with taxes from the parents. "The parents are over burdened with problems, and therefore they are not to be forced to pay something extra," he said. Mr Ablakwah assured school authorities that the government was doing everything possible to get the accommodation and furniture problems facing the schools solved very soon. He appealed to the contractors working on the buildings to speed up the work. The Deputy Minister said the government was taking a second look at the Computerized School Selection and Placement System (CSSPS) to enable it to resolve problems facing it to enable it to work more efficiently. He said complaints being received about the CSSPS were worrisome to the government.

Mr Ablakwah said the government was to give serious attention to the model school programme to upgrade the standards in at least one Senior High School (SHS) in every district. He said this had become a pressing issue because records had shown that about 90 per cent of admissions into public universities were students enrolled from only 50 SHSs out of about 500 government-assisted SHS and private SHS in the country.

Mr Ablakwa said the government was also considering re-introduction of the quota system of admission of students to schools in their localities and added that the problem facing the quota system was how to peg the quota in order not to make places without SHS be disadvantaged as the schools were not evenly sited in the districts. The Deputy Minister said the government would monitor closely the system, when re-introduced, to check its abuse. On the strike by the university teachers, Mr Ablakwah said solution was in sight following a meeting held with President John Evans Atta Mills last week.