Parent Association accounts: Heads of schools can't be signatories
No head of a pre-tertiary public school should be a signatory to any parent associations (PAs) account, the Ghana Education Service (GES’s) first-ever guidelines for parent associations has directed.
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The guidelines state that PAs in the various schools are expected to manage their activities independently but are allowed to work closely with the management of the schools.
Taking the Daily Graphic through the guidelines, the Deputy Director-General of the GES in charge of Quality and Access, Dr Kwabena Bempah Tandoh, explained that the associations operating in the specific schools identified themselves using the name of the school.
He said, for instance, that the PA for PRESEC was known and called the PRESEC PA, "and because the association is using the name of GES schools to raise revenue, at least, inform us in your audited account.”
“We do not even want to select an auditor for you but inform us in the auditored account that a particular amount of money was raised using the name of the school and this amount was spent and this is the amount left,” Dr Tandoh added.
He explained that it was necessary to do so and the GES must be interested in how the names of its schools were being used for the purpose of raising funds.
“That is why we are saying that, at least, inform the schools of your auditored accounts so that the managements of the schools can also have their peace of mind,” Dr Tandoh said.
Guidelines
The Deputy Director-General was speaking about the guidelines for the operations of parent associations in public basic schools.
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The release of the guidelines has been met with resistance from the National Council for Parent Teacher Associations (NCPTAs) who complained of altering the name parent- teacher association (PTA) to parents association (PA).
Consequently, the NCPTAs demanded that the GES restores the original name.
But the GES insists that pre-tertiary schools are under its watch and where appropriate, it will alter their operations as deemed fit.
"The GES, legally and formerly does not have any relationship with the council and as a matter of fact, we have the responsibility to run our schools and we run our schools very well," he added.
He explained that changing PTA to PA actually reflected more on "what the association really is, which is parents who pay dues.
The teachers do not pay dues and association members usually pay dues".
Dr Tandoh insisted that there was nowhere in the guidelines that teachers were prevented from having a relationship with the association, adding that GES advised the various PAs to work closely with the teachers in the school.
The Deputy Director-General stressed that the GES would not compromise on any arrangement that sought to deprive a student from accessing education.
He said the educational system in the country was a tripartite relation among teachers, parents and students, "and we value the contribution of parents in this tripartite arrangement".
"But what we will not compromise is any arrangement by anyone in this tripartite relation that prevents the child from access to education," the Deputy Director-General emphasised.
"We felt the previous arrangement put undue pressure on the child and as GES, we have the responsibility to make sure that the child can have access to education in a convivial environment," Dr Tandoh explained.
Commendations
He said the GES had received commendations from teacher unions for adopting the guidelines because it had cleared all ambiguities in the running of the schools where PAs were concerned.
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"We have evidence from union members who are very happy that these guidelines have removed ambiguities in terms of what each party within the tripartite can and cannot do," he added.