School levies exist despite Capitation Grant

Parents are still being burdened with special levies by public schools, a “Citizens’ Assessment Report on the Capitation Grant” has affirmed.

The levies have been categorised into purpose-based and source-based, which have been further divided into administrative, capital development and incidental levies, as well as school-sponsored and Parent Teacher Association (PTA) sponsored levies respectively.

This was contained in a 106-page report on the findings of a survey conducted last year to ascertain if the Capitation Grant was achieving its objective of eliminating extra fees and charges at the basic school level.

The report rather indicated that a lot of levies had flourished, in spite of the government’s plan to make it a disincentive to charge levies in public schools.

Presenting an overview of the report at its launch in Accra, Dr Clement Adamba of the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) listed some of the levies as examination, extra classes, PTA, collection (offertory), maintenance, sports, culture, excursion, funeral and capital development.

He noted that although officially no tuition fees were charged, the amount paid by parents as levies was 10 times more than the capitation grant of GH¢4.50 paid per pupil currently.

Dr Adamba said the study found that more pupils were sent home or barred from writing examinations for non-payment of levies in rural public schools than in urban schools.

Impact of Capitation Grant

He indicated that over 50 per cent of the 2,245 households interviewed in the study said the capitation grant had had no impact on the quality of education while 40 per cent thought it had.

The study, according to Dr Adamba, also showed that 70 per cent of the 440 public basic schools sampled from 151 enumeration areas and 20 districts across all the regions responded that the scheme had had a positive impact on school enrolment.

Speakers at the launch of the report agreed that the capitation grant had increased enrolment in schools but said it had also affected the quality of teaching in most schools.

They also stated that the funds allocated were inadequate while they were not timeously released too.

Challenges of scheme

Dr Adamba enumerated challenges of the scheme as the delays in the release of funds, inconsistencies in the application and management procedures and high transaction costs in accessing the funds.

He indicated that during the 2012/2013 academic year, 47 per cent of schools did not receive any of the three tranches of the grant that they were supposed to receive, while payment of the grant was averagely a year behind.

“The continuous relevance of the policy depends largely on timely release,” he stated, recommending that the high cost of transaction could be reduced through mobile alerts.

He also advocated that the capitation grant manual should be sent to the schools to aid in its proper utilisation.

Mr Mathias Puozaa, Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Education, said Parliament’s perspective was that the success story of the capitation grant had been short-lived due to the challenges of delay in the release of funds and the small quantum of the amount, such that “schools with very little enrolment did not see the need to go for it from the district offices.”

Mr Akwasi Oppong-Fosu, a Minister of State at the Presidency, said, “conscious of the importance of education and its relation to improve citizenship, culture and democratic engagement, government is leveraging the capitation grant as a tool to empower citizens through expanding access to education”.

He said further that the presidency, therefore, believed that the findings on the capitation grant would help shape the government’s policies towards that end.

Chairman of the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), Dr Kwesi Botchwey, said the capitation grant was meant to provide a disincentive for the growing incidence of fees and other charges since they were linked to school enrolment.

He asked that the findings be used to improve the implementation of government policies.

Writer’s email: edmund.asante@graphic.com.gh