The Conference of Heads of Assisted Senior High Schools (CHASS) has called for a review of the Free SHS policy to help address some financial challenges facing the Policy.
Speaking at the 5th Annual Conference of CHASS at Wesley Girls High School in Cape Coast, President of the Conference, Alhaji Yakubu A.B Abubakar urged the Ghana Education Service (GES) and other stakeholders to reverse the decision of canceling of Parents Teachers Association (PTA) financial Contributions to the various Second Cycle Institutions.
According to CHASS, the cancellation of the policy has led to the collapse of PTAs in schools across the country, resulting in many abandoned projects and financial stress at the Senior High School level.
“The observation of the Conference is that PTA activities are gradually dying in our schools. Hitherto, the PTAs were playing very significant roles in our schools,” President of CHASS said.
He said the free Senior High School Policy has been accompanied by a delay in the release of funds making management of schools very difficult availability of PTA funds could help leverage on it to among other things keep the schools running.
“At present, even though there are delays in the release of funds, schools do not have the leverage like PTAs to assist them and so making the effective administration of schools problematic,” he added.
“If a policy is in place and for the past three years and it is not working, then we need to take another look at it,” he said.
Additionally, CHASS raised concerns over the quality of food supply by the National buffer stock company in Senior High Schools.
“The Buffet Stock should be seen to be operating according to their mandate and not as middlemen who quickly react to changes in market prices by either valuing their supplies or sometimes not supplying at all. A typical example currently is of groundnut and mackerel,” he said.
CHASS further called for a review of the portion of the feeding grant given to schools, advocating uplift from 30% given to schools to a minimum of 40%.
Source: Mybrytfmonline.com /Obed Ansah
