Let’s avoid premature closure of shss

It is a perennial problem as every year heads of senior high schools (SHSs) beat war drums over delayed payment of subsidies.

This year, the Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools (CHASS) says the government has not paid subsidies for the entire 2013/2014 academic year.

CHASS, therefore, says the heads of the educational institutions will be forced to close their schools if the government does not release the subsidies promptly  to enable the schools to run more efficiently.

It is unfortunate that the school heads are experiencing challenges in facilitating teaching and learning because government funding is yet to be released.

This is not a new phenomenon. Delays in the payment of subsidies to the schools is an age-old challenge. However, that does not mean that successive administrations should delay the payment of subsidies as if to say that the tradition goes on.

Our educational system is facing many challenges in present times and it will be counter-productive to engage heads of schools in other endeavours that are not their core functions. So long as, as a country, we have not been able to abolish the boarding system as was proposed some years ago, the heads will spend part of their time looking for resources to run their schools.

We are concerned about the present development because instead of heads of the schools staying in the office to carry out administration and supervise the teachers, they spend most of their time chasing credit from the banks to settle their indebtedness to creditors.

And that is why the Daily Graphic thinks this so-called tradition of delays in releasing subsidies to the schools must become a thing of the past.

The failure of the government to release feeding subsidies to the schools is not something that should be celebrated. It is a big albatross hanging around the neck of the government and the heads of the schools.

We are not oblivious of the realities of our time as the government is faced with many funding challenges. Various sectors of the economy have been starved of their operational funds because of factors such as shortfalls in revenue, the inability of the donor community to support our economy and the depreciation of the cedi.

But these are matters that the government should not take lying low but rather take steps to source funds for the schools to avoid the abrupt termination of academic activities during the third term. There is no point in reminding the government that education holds the key to the development of our country.

We should, therefore, be prepared to bend over for the sake of education and the future of our children and  find the resources to promote uninterrupted teaching and learning processes in our schools.

The Daily Graphic, therefore, calls on the government to avoid the worst scenario of forcing the heads of schools to send the students home because the heads cannot cope with the challenges.

In the meantime, we call on CHASS to hasten slowly with its intended closure of the schools while the government acts promptly to avoid the premature closure of  schools.