GES Won't Raise Fees - Director General

The Ghana Education Service (GES) says it will not increase fees in public secondary schools when the 2006/2007 academic year begins this September, because the prices of food items have been quite stable.

Deputy Director-General of the GES in charge of Quality and Access, Samuel Bannerman-Mensah, who made this known to the Times in Accra, said the decision was taken at a meeting held on July 18, with representatives of CHASS, the Domestic Bursars Association, the Conference of Principals of Training Colleges and other key stakeholders.

He said feeding fees in schools had been of major concern to GES which prompted it to conduct a survey in some selected boarding schools in the Greater Accra, Ashanti and Western regions to ascertain the average feeding cost per student per day.

The survey showed that in spite of some fluctuations in the prices of major food items schools depend on, majority of the schools were able to reasonably feed the students throughout the school term within the approved fees.

In view of this, he said the heads were asked to stick to the existing fees.

However, the Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools (CHASS) is asking for an upward adjustment of the existing government subsidy of 134,000 per student per term, especially on building maintenance, sports, sanitation and practical examination fees.

The existing subsidy is 15,000 for building maintenance per student per term, 8,000 for sports, sanitation 8,000 and 30,000 as practical fees for science, technical, vocational and agriculture examinations.

On the call for increase in the four areas of the subsidy, Mr Bannerman-Mensah asked CHASS to provide grounds for it.

"If there is genuine need for increases GES will not hesitate to do it to correspond with prevailing market prices," he stated.