Education Ministry to meet CHASS over threats to postpone school reopening date
As the reopening date for schools beckons, the Education Ministry is scheduled to meet the Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools (CHASS) to resolve situations likely to delay the reopening of Senior High Schools across the country.
This stems from an initial meeting by CHASS where they decided that the government through the Education Ministry and Ghana Education Service should honour their outstanding bursaries and food supplies to the schools by December 31 before they would resume academic work.
CHASS backed its decision by explaining that it expects the government to release the first semester Forms One and Two recurrent (balance) for 2021, the second semester recurrent for Forms One, Two and Three, and Form One perishable for the Second Semester.
CHASS’ resolution was passed at an emergency meeting of the Council held on December 23, 2021, in Kumasi.
Meanwhile, sources at the Education Ministry says that the Minister’s office is hopeful a meeting would be held before the close of this week to resolve the outstanding issues.
CHASS had lamented the challenges heads of secondary schools are facing “at their Schools which include the implementation of the Free Senior High School (FSHS) government policy, especially challenges of erratic supply of food to schools and financial constraints; delays in the release of monies to schools and also the releases that are generally done in bits, affecting the smooth running of the schools.”
They went ahead to demand the following as conditions for reopening the schools for the 2021/2022 academic year;
A. First Semester forms one and two recurrent (balance) for 2021.
B. The whole of Second Semester recurrent for Forms One, Two and Three.
C. Form One perishables for Second Semester.
D. Fifty per cent of form 3 perishables.
E. Teachers Intervention Money.
F. Staff Motivation.
G. Development Levy.
H. Fifty per cent examination levy
CHASS also asked the National Food and Buffer Stock to make available “all outstanding food supplies to schools.”
CHASS has emphatically stated that they will inform the GES Management on the 4th January 2022 and also advise parents not to send their wards to schools on the reporting date of January 5, 2022, as Heads will not be able to administer the running of the schools amidst these challenges, and expressed the hope that the issues would be addressed by the end of 2021, to avert any unfortunate happenings.
By: Stella Annan | myactiveonline.com Twitter @activetvgh
