Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Professor Kwasi Opoku-Amankwa
Three hundred and ninety-eight out of the 670 senior high schools (SHS) have failed to submit their returns on the funds released to them under the implementation of the Free Senior High School (SHS) policy.
Out of the 670 SHSs, 150 of them have so far submitted some of their returns on uniforms, house dress and school cloth, while the remaining 117 have submitted all their returns covering school uniforms, house dress and school cloth.
Surprisingly, most of the popular SHSs are yet to submit their returns.
Implementation plan
Under the implementation of the Free SHS programme, all schools received an upfront payment of 20 per cent of their funds, based on the number of students on admission.
The upfront payment was to help the schools to acquire perishable food items for feeding their students, procure the school uniforms, house dress and school cloth for all their first year students.
The schools are also expected to submit a signed list of students who reported, which should tally with the list on the admission platform.
Sanctions
In an exclusive interview with the Daily Graphic, the Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Professor Kwasi Opoku-Amankwa, directed all heads of SHSs which had not yet submitted the returns to fully comply with the directive by the close of Friday, January 12, 2018.
He said those who would not be able to comply with the directive would not only be sanctioned, but would not get any funds for the second term, which had just started.
Prof. Opoku-Amankwa warned that the GES would not accept any negligence on the part of any head of SHS to affect the students.
Disbursement
Prof. Opoku-Amankwa said with the commencement of the second term of the academic year, 20 per cent for perishables, representing 22.40 per day student and 92.16 per boarding student, would be lodged into the accounts of all schools.
He said the implication was that the amount for each school would depend on the number of signed list of students the school submitted.
On the recurrent fees, each school would receive GH¢67.67 per each student irrespective of whether day or boarding.
Prof. Opoku-Amankwa explained that it meant that each school would receive GH¢90.07 per day student and GH¢159.83 per boarding student.
He said the sector minister had, therefore, requested the Free SHS Secretariat to make available the verified number of students each school had submitted for the onward lodging of the fund into the respective accounts of the schools.
-DailyGraphic