Regional News of Saturday, 26 October 2013

Source: joyonline

GES sets provisional fees for the 2013-14 Academic year for SHS

Heads of Senior High Schools have been directed to charge a provisional fee of 400-500 Ghana cedis for the 2013-2014 Academic year.

The directive came after complaints from parents that some school heads were charging 1,500 Ghana cedis as admission fees.

The parents told Nhyira FM's Kwabena Apratwum that the heads of schools were taking undue advantage of their desperation to find schools for their wards and are charging outrageous amounts.

Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Benedicta Nana Biney, told Ampratwum that the directive is expected to address the grievances of the parents.

According to her, the GES is still meeting to decide on newly approved fees for the 2014 academic year and until a decision is reached no school should charge beyond 500 Ghana cedis, which was the amount for the 2012-2013 Academic year.

She further explained if the approved fees for 2014 are relatively higher than what has been charged, parents will be made to pay the difference in the next academic year and if they were lower, they will be credited in the next academic year.

She also frowned on the school heads selling unapproved educational materials to the students.

Nana Biney insisted the schools already have a list of approved educational materials to be sold to students, adding that if the school by itself had a material it thinks will be of relevance to the students, those materials should be sent to the stores to be bought at the students' own convenience.