The Conference of Directors of Private Pre-Tertiary Schools – Ghana (CODPPTS) says the Free Senior High School policy should be made a pro-poor programme targeting low-income earners and the deprived of the population.
It wondered how the rich and the poor could enjoy the policy when the rich could afford. “The situation on the ground is that parents are incurring huge costs by engaging private teachers to teach their wards to make up for completion of the syllabus.
“How should a managing
director and a messenger in the same organisation whose wards have passed to
enter SHS enjoy equal fee-free tuition?
“Parents who are capable
must be made to contribute to their wards’ education as a way of making the
policy sustainable,” a communique issued at a meeting held in Accra said.
The meeting, among other
things, looked at the impact of COVID-19 on private pre-tertiary schools and
private school teachers in the country.
The communique, signed
by the President of CODPPTS, Mr.
Philip Boateng Mensah, welcomed the
establishment of the National Schools Inspectorate Authority and pledged to
collaborate with it.
It urged the authorities
to see private schools as partners in development but not student-head teacher
relationship for mutual respect and cordial relationship.
The meeting noted that
since the closure of schools in March 2020, support from the government for
private schools and their teachers had been mere rhetoric and mockery.
“The various stimulus
packages provided by government to its institutions and personnel they
considered priority excluded the private school owners and teachers.
“The allocation to
National Board for Small-Scale Industries for private school teachers to access
was nothing to write home about,” it said.
The communique said
while the government was supporting private organisations in such difficult
times, its education partners were relegated to the background.
It expressed concern
about the attempt by the government to give 30 per cent quota of admissions to
class ‘A’ senior high schools to public schools.
“This is not only
unconstitutional but also creates educational apartheid in Ghana's educational
system,” it said.
“The Constitution
provides for equal opportunities for all Ghanaians. The conference is of the
view that if there is any approach to bridge the gap between public and private
basic schools’ admission to SHS, the way to go is not the lazy approach of
allocating 30 per cent quota to public schools to steal the start at the race.
It urged the Ministry of
Education and Ghana Education Service to be prudent in their decisions and
allocate more resources for monitoring and supervision but not the easy path
they had chosen.
It said parents whose
wards were in private schools and workers in private schools were taxpayers in
Ghana and their taxes were part of funds used to build, develop and sustain
secondary schools.
Therefore, it said, the
conduct of the Ministry of Education was discriminatory and unconstitutional.
“Again, the Ghana
Education Service has more qualified teachers in all public schools than
private schools, so if performance is stunted at the public school level, what
is required is to do a diagnosis of the problem to solve it, rather than
condoning the laxity, low supervision and lackadaisical attitude of some public
school teachers resulting in low performance,” the communique said.
