Sunyani (B/A) Jan. 24, GNA - Basic schools in Sunyani Municipality are yet to receive their capitation grants because their head teachers have not completed the School Performance Improvement Plan (SPIP)that would qualify the schools for the facility. This came to light when Mrs. Angelina Baiden Amissah, Deputy Minister of Education and Sports in-charge of Basic Education and Teacher Training Institutions on Monday inspected some of the schools.

The inspection was to afford the Deputy Minister the opportunity to assess how the capitation grant was influencing learning and teaching in the schools and also to know problems encountered. Under the grant each basic school pupil is entitled to 30,000 cedis per term.

The schools operating without the facility include Presbyterian Primary 'A' and 'B', its Junior Secondary School, Methodist Primary 'A' and its JSS, all in Sunyani, Antwikrom Municipal Assembly Primary, Methodist Primary, A.M.E. Zion Primary, both at Fiapre and the Municipal Assembly Primary schools at Odomase, near Sunyani.

Mrs. Baiden-Amissah explained that the capitation grant was also to complement parents' support to the education of their children in relation to minor repairs on school blocks, sports, culture and printing fees, among others.

"The introduction of the (capitation) grant has not rpt not replaced parents' responsibility to their school-going children", debunking the misconception that it had come to replace the payment of Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) fees.

"PTAs should continue to play their supporting role in education by instituting affordable levies", Mrs. Baiden-Amissah said and cautioned that on no account should any teacher prevent any pupil from attending class for not paying any PTA fees.

Mrs. Baiden-Amissah, who is MP for Shama said the SPIP team, which includes the chairman of the school management committee of each school was expected to fill a form to be vetted by the district and regional directorate of GES before submitting it to the District or Municipal Assemblies for final approval for the capitation grant.

"Head teachers are expected to indicate in the team the enrolment rate of the school among other pertinent questions", she added. More

Mrs. Baiden-Amissah later in an interaction with newsmen expressed dismay about the poor conditions in some of the schools, particularly at Antwikrom where she appealed to the Municipal Assembly to, as a matter of urgency, construct a new six-classroom block for the Assembly's Primary School.

A side attraction of the Deputy Minister's inspection tour included glancing through the pupils' exercise books and singing and dancing together with some of them in their classrooms.

Mr. Kwame Twumasi Awuah, Municipal Chief Executive presented exercise books to be distributed to pupils in upper primary schools in the Municipality and urged the pupils to learn hard so they could pass well in the Basic Education Certificate Examination.

Also in the Deputy Minister's entourage were Mrs. Akua Akubour Debrah, Regional Director of Education and Bishop Emmanuel Wiseman K. Kusi, Municipal Director of Education.