About half of the 280 Private Senior High schools in the country could
be forced to shut down within the next few years due to the dwindling level of
student enrollment in these schools, the Conference of Heads of Private Second
Cycle Schools (CHOPPS) has warned.
CHOPPS said the new trend could also lead to massive job losses.
CHOPPS has expressed concerns over the collapse of private schools since
the inception of the Free SHS policy.
Though government subsequently absorbed 15 private secondary schools to help
meet the growing intake of students, CHOPPS has consistently called for more
assistance from government.
Speaking to Citi News on the level of engagement
between CHOPPS and the government, the General Secretary of the schools, Joseph
Dzamesi said all attempts to address the problem had failed.
“280 private schools are in the country. Within the next couple of years
we are estimating that about 50% of them will be out of business. Currently
about a third of them are on life support, barely surviving. And a number of
them have completely collapsed.
“When you look at it in terms of the economics, they have estimated that
both teaching and non teaching staff , private senior high schools employ about
10,000 people across the country. Obviously your guess is as good as mine. That
means that when about half of them collapse over the next couple of years,
about 5,000 jobs are gonna be lost in terms of the students.We provide access
to about 70,000 children and now a bunch of the classrooms are empty. Students
are struggling with the double track.”
CHOPPS had expressed its reservations with Government’s
absorption of 15 private schools under the Free Senior High School Policy.
The General Secretary for CHOPSS, Joseph Dzamesi,
said the 15 schools had given up because of low student intake and had
essentially become government schools.
“…Absorbed, meaning these are headmasters who have given up. They don’t
have students in their classrooms so they have given up control, facilities and
everything to the government to run, ” he told Citi News.
Mr. Dzamesi stressed that the private schools are looking for a
partnership, not to cede control of their schools.
“They [absorbed schools] have become government schools just like
Achimota Schools or some mission schools that have been given to government to
run. So that is not what we are talking about. We are asking for partnership
and they have thrown that away completely.”
“We presented proposals to government and as far as I know, none of the
proposals were taken,” he added.
The Education Minister has explained that any form of collaboration with
private schools requires more time and engagement.
The Ghana Education Service has a committee that assesses the
infrastructure level of the private schools and their human resources before
any possible partnership or absorption can go ahead.
“The schools that come, they come with different levels of
infrastructure needs. That is why the Ghana Education Service has a committee
that goes to assess those schools that goes to assess those schools that even
come and knock on their doors to be absorbed,” Dr. Opoku-Prempeh told the
media on Monday.
“Government should have a capital outlay in making sure that the
teachers there are qualified. The government cannot send public students to
places where the teachers are unqualified. It means that the government should
have the budget to absorb those teachers or to make sure they can post teachers
to those places.”
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