Heads of public senior high schools cautioned

The Deputy Minister of Education, Mr. Alex Kyeremeh, has cautioned heads of public senior high schools (SHS) who are charging unapproved admission fees for first year students to stop and comply with the government approved fees with immediate effect.

He also instructed the heads to ensure that all the students who had been posted to their schools through the Computerized School Selection and Placement System (CSSPS) are not denied admission.

Mr. Kyeremeh said this when he and some officials from the Ministry visited some schools in the Central Region on Tuesday.

The team, which included some top officials of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Ministry of Education, visited Mfantsiman Girls, Aggrey Memorial, Mfantsipim and Wesley Girls High schools.

The visit was to ascertain complaints from the public with regards to admission fees and CSSPS admissions in the region.

The Deputy Minister reiterated that the government was committed to ensure accessible education for all by the terms of the Millennium Development goal (MDGs) and therefore called on the heads of educational institutions to help achieve this aim.

He said similar visits would be paid to schools in the other regions and that a monitoring team would be sent to all schools to ensure that approved fees were charged.

Mr Kyeremeh told the heads to ensure that rules and regulations regarding the approved fees and CSSPS were adhered to. He said government approved bills required boarding students to pay between 437.00 Ghana cedis and 500.00 Ghana cedis and day students are to pay 230.00 Ghana cedis.

At the Mfantsipim School it was detected that first year students were made to pay an admission fee of 650.00 Ghana cedis in addition to a special Parent/ Teacher Association (PTA) Levy of 220 Ghana cedis.

Mr. John Aitkpillah, Assistant Headmaster of Mfantsipim in charge of Academic Affairs, explained that the School had not received the approved bill and was therefore charging the students based on the previous year’s bill.

Mrs. Phyllis Arthur Simpson, the Assistant head in Charge of Domestic Affairs, added that the special PTA levy was for development projects being undertaken by the School and that the School had received approval from the GES and PTA to collect such fees. At the Wesley Girls High School, Mrs Betty Djokoto, the Headmistress, said the School was charging 700.00 Ghana cedis as admission fees because the School had not got the approved fees. She said the fees charged were for all other items including customized books, stationery and others that would be needed by students to facilitate teaching and learning.

Mrs Djokoto attributed the School’s inability to admit all the students posted to the School to lack of classrooms, adding that work on a 12- unit classroom block was very slow, making it impossible to admit more students.

The Assistant Headmaster in charge of Academic affairs of the Aggrey Memorial secondary School , Reverend Aboagye Buadu told the team that the 700.00 Ghana cedis being collected was a deposit since the school had not yet received the new approved bill and gave the assurance that the school planned to debit students when the approved bill is received.

Reverend Simon Asige of the GES disagreed with the heads’ explanation that they did not know the new approved bill, adding that a committee set to review the fees included the President of the Council of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools (CHASS) which came up with the approved fee.

He said a footnote attached to the approved bill were distributed to school heads which directed that other relevant books and stationary might be put in the stores for students who wished to purchase them to do so at their own convenience and not to be part of the fees.

He said the footnote further stated that other PTA levies for the development projects must have an explicit approval from the Director General of the GES before students are billed but expressed regret that the situation was not the same in the various schools.