Parents whose wards attend public schools in the Agona West Municipality are complaining about a 50 pesewas charge per child in Lower Primary per day recently introduced by Head teachers in the Municipality, contrary to the Ghana Education Service (GES) directive that no child in public school should be charged any unapproved fee or otherwise, following Government’s policy of Free Education for every Ghanaian child.
Pieces of information gathered by this media from a reliable but anonymous source revealed that the decision of the extra classes charge was mooted by the Agona West Municipal Director of Education, Mr. Joseph Kingsley Akwaboah upon a meeting with the Head teachers on Tuesday March 21, 2021 and subsequently implemented in the schools after a meeting with the parents by the schools.
According to the source, twenty percent of the total accrued charge per week is allegedly to be paid into the Education Director’s coffers, whilst the remaining eighty percent goes to the Head teachers and the teaching staff.
This demanding situation is over-burdening the parents some of whom are already finding it difficult to even provide a meal for the children to school, and is therefore forcing children from deprived homes who cannot pay for the extra classes to avoid school, defeating the government’s Free Education concept.
Some parents and school children contacted confirmed the information, saying it had been made compulsory.