Rev. Prince Kusi addressing the participants
Private Schools in the Western Region have bemoaned the alleged discrimination against them when it comes to government’s support to schools.
They could not fathom why government would keep supplying logistics bought with the tax payers’ money to the public schools and leave out the private schools.
Rev. Prince Kusi, the Western Regional Chairman of Ghana National Association of Private Schools, has therefore pleaded with the government to make conscious efforts to supply educational materials to the private schools also.
“Because we are also teaching Ghanaian children,” he explained.
He was speaking at a meeting of the members of the association in Takoradi, to among other things, elect new executives.
He said, “What we have also realized is that a BECE graduate from a private school with an aggregate of 7 will not get the first, second or third choice of SHS, and at times the person will not get placement at all.
“But a BECE graduate with an aggregate of 30 from a public school will get placement in a grade ‘A’ school; and the discrimination is so worrying,” he lamented.
“We will plead with government to treat us equally,” he said.
He said the private schools had also realized that a lot of students had been moved from their end to the public schools after the COVID-19 break.
“This is because government has come up with so many interventions such as payment of BECE registration fees for students in public schools and the school feeding programme among others which is making the public school more attractive,” he said.
Registration
He said their meeting was also to discuss the registration and licencing of private schools with the National School Inspection Authority (NaSIA).
He said, “Formerly, we were registering with the Ghana Education Service but by the 2019 Educational Act, the mandate of private schools’ registration, licencing and inspection have been given to NaSIA.
He stressed the need for private school owners to also come up with strategies to be able to attract more students.