Headteachers in trouble with parents over fees

Tamale, Oct. 26, GNA - Some parents of the Nyohini Presbyterian Junior Secondary School in Tamale are threatening to send the school authorities to court for charging 60,000 cedis as registration fee for the Basic Education Certificate (BECE) from their children instead of the stipulated 30,000 cedis.

A spokesman for the parents, Mr James Owusu, said they did not understand why the teachers were refunding only 10,000 cedis to them instead of 30,000 cedis when it came to light that the registration fee for the BECE was 30,000 cedis.

He said some of the parents could not raise the 60,000 cedis by themselves and had to borrow from friends and relatives to enable their wards to register for the examination.

When the GNA contacted Madam Juliana Osei and Madam Charlotte V. Seidu, in charge of the JSS "B" and JSS "A", respectively confirmed the story and showed records of the refund of the 10,000 cedis to some of the students.

Students who registered for the BECE in JSS "B" class were 155 while 165 registered in JSS "A" class.

The Heads explained that at first they did not know how much to collect from the students since there had not been any official communication from the Ghana Education Service to them on the fees. They said part of the money was spent on pencils, erasers, glue, and candidates' photographs.

Part of the amount was also used to defray secretarial charges, bringing total expenditure to 50,000 cedis out of the 60,000 cedis that the each parent paid.

They held that the issue over the refund had posed some problem and that at a meeting with the Regional Director of Education last week, it was agreed that they refund 10,000 cedis to the students. They also explained that not all the students paid the 60,000 cedis because some of them paid for their passport size pictures.