Are we learning any lessons?

The Conference of Heads of Government-assisted Secondary Schools has warned that it will be compelled to ask its members not to reopen for the first term of the 2014/2015 academic year if the government does not release subsidies for the maintenance of the schools before the middle of September when they are due to reopen .

They say the government only paid the first tranche (for the first term of the 2013/2014 academic year) in the first week of this month, leaving arrears for the second and third terms.

This is not the first time that the heads are sounding the alarm bells on the release of subsidies to their institutions. The prompt release of funds to pay the subsidies and grants for second cycle schools has been a matter of concern to students, school authorities and, indeed, parents and guardians for a long time.

In January this year, the government had to be reminded of its obligation towards the 83 senior high schools in the three northern regions which had delayed reopening as a result of arrears in feeding fees and subsidies owed them by the government before the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning released GH¢50.4 million for the payment of feeding grants for the schools to enable them to reopen.

At the time, the Ministry of Education assured the whole country that it would facilitate the early release of funds to schools to ensure smooth academic activities on the various campuses.

The country’s special schools have had their share of the delay in the release of funds for the payment of subsidies and grants. At the beginning of the 2013 and 2014 academic years, heads of special schools throughout the country had to go through the agony of having to look for money to keep their students in school.

The Daily Graphic is not unaware of the challenges the country is going through. We know for instance that many regional and district directorates of education are in dire need of funding to execute their day-to-day programmes, especially regular supervision of educational institutions under them. We cannot also gloss over the government’s challenges in providing sufficiently for first cycle and tertiary institutions.

Our concern lies with what appears to be the annual ritual of heads having to threaten to keep schools closed as a result of the non-release of grants and subsidies before funds are made available to run the institutions. We appear not to be learning any lessons from the past.

Very soon, we shall be inundated with the anxieties associated with the release of senior and junior high school results and the accompanying placement of candidates in the next levels of the educational ladder.

In the case of the payment of the subsidies for the second cycle institutions, the government has the period between now and the middle of September to allay the concerns of the school heads by making funds available to them, not just to cover what is owed, but substantially to ensure that the coming academic year will be run without any financial difficulties.

Education is so important to national development that everything should be done to remove all encumbrances that have the tendency to derail the effective implementation of programmes. As a nation we must initiate a funding policy for education that is sustainable to avoid this recurrent phenomenon.