The Ministry of Education has released Gh¢35.9
million to public second cycle schools under the Free Senior High School
programme to cover initial operational and administrative costs for the second
term of the 2017/2018 academic year.
Speaking to Citi News, the Head of
Communications at the Free SHS Secretariat, Josberta Gyan Kwakye, said the
amount would cover about 489 schools.
We have released such an amount to the various
secondary schools and it covers about 489 schools… the Ghc35.9 million that has
been sent to the schools currently, is to cover the initial administrative
costs for the schools for the second term.”
She also explained that the initial 20 percent
sent to the schools in September 2017 “was based on raw estimations because as
of the time we were releasing the funds, we didn’t have the exact enrolment
numbers so it was more of an approximation.”
She said the Ministry has also paid GH¢3,392,031
as arrears for 264 schools during the first term.
“After we
had been able to confirm the enrolment numbers based on the signed list that
the individual schools submitted to the secretariat, we have now come to the
conclusion that about [264] schools had some arrears to be paid to cover for
the first term,” Mrs. Gyan Kwakye said.
Prior
payments
In September 2017, the government released for
disbursement half of the GH¢ 486 million for the policy.
That amount was to serve the over 400,000 first-year students who benefited from the Free SHS policy this 2017/2018 academic year.
That amount was to serve the over 400,000 first-year students who benefited from the Free SHS policy this 2017/2018 academic year.
At the beginning of 2018, the government also
released GHc62,606,403, in three instalment payments for the delivery of food
items to Senior High Schools in the country to the National Food Buffer Stock
Company.
In terms of other notable expenses under the
policy, the government set aside an amount of GHc80 million to address
challenges relating to furniture.
Budgetary
allocation for Free SHS ‘woefully inadequate’ – Ablakwa
National Democratic Congress Member of
Parliament for the North Tongu Constituency, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, has
described the government’s budgetary allocation for Free SHS as woefully
inadequate to support the programme.
According to him, government would need at
least two billion cedis to support Free SHS in 2018, 800 million cedis more
than the amount that was allocated to it in the budget.
‘You can’t run education with voluntary funds’
The government announced that it would set up a
fund to receive voluntary contributions from individuals to support the
implementation of the free SHS programme and the educational sector as a whole.
However, this plan has come under fire from the
Minority who believe this is an indication that government does not have the
funds to properly implement its much-touted programme.
And according to Okudzeto Ablakwa, the
government cannot afford to rely on the voluntary funds as a source of funding
for free SHS, as projections for those funds may not materialize.
Source: citifmonline.com
Source: citifmonline.com
