Govt will not tolerate charging of illegal fees

Takoradi, Oct.18, GNA - Mr. Yaw Osafo-Maafo, Minister of Education and Sports on Monday said the Government would not tolerate the charging of illegal fees by heads of basic schools.

He said the Ministry had written to demand explanation from the head of a school in Accra found to have charged admission fees. "Recalcitrant heads of basic schools cannot use their pupils to collect unauthorised fees. Such an attitude is not fair to the system, " he added.

Mr Osafo-Maafo was addressing the opening session of the 12th Annual Conference of District Directors of Education (CODDE) at Takoradi. The theme for the six-day conference is "Implementation of the 2004 education reform review report."

He said the Capitation grant was in fulfilment of a constitutional requirement to ensure that all school-going age children attended school by 2015 and called on Ghanaians to refrain from "deliberately twisting the concept".

Mr. Osafo-Maafo said some schools were using the Parent Teacher Associations (PTAs) to charge 80,000 cedis as development levy and pledged the commitment of the Ministry to check attitudes that could adversely affect the smooth implementation of the education reforms. He said "PTA levies and other contributions are voluntary and no child must be made to suffer for that."

Mr. Osafo-Maafo appealed to religious institutions, Chiefs, Metropolitan, Municipal and District assemblies to step up their involvement in the provision of facilities and training of teachers to enhance education.

He said while some assemblies were performing well to improve education, others were simply not offering any assistance adding "Metropolitan assemblies are the worse offenders in this regard." Mr Osafo-Maafo called on Directors of Education to institute measures to improve on discipline in schools.