Govt's Failure to Absorb Registration Fees of Private BECE Candidates Bemoaned

By Times Reporter

The Gomoa West District Chairman of the Ghana National Association of Private Schools (GNAPS), Reverend Joseph Jehu-Appiah, has expressed worry over the government's inability to absorb the registration fees for Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) candidates in private schools.

He said the children in private schools were there not only by choice but due to insufficient facilities in public schools and that "If the government is taking this cost then it should cover all Ghanaian children."

Rev. Jehu-Appiah was addressing a gathering of private school students and teachers to climax the GNAPS week celebrations at Mumford on the theme "Promoting reading culture, a key to information age."

It is recalled that last year the government announced that it would absorb the registration fees of the 2018 Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) candidates in public junior high schools.

The registration fee is GH¢75 per candidate in both private and government schools.

Mr Jehu-Appiah alleged and lamented that children in public schools were posted to senior high schools (SHSs) before those in private schools although some of the private school children performed better.

The District Chairman appealed to the government to support children with disabilities by employing community based rehabilitation workers to assist them at different levels of educational levels.

The district private schools coordinator of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Ms Felicia Owiaba, advised students to inculcate the habit of reading, saying that by reading more the brain becomes more focused and sharper.

"With constant reading people tend to gain experience from others on their successes and failures," she said.

Ms Owiaba likened students who could not read to a bird that had been caged adding that the sad aspect of lack of reading was that one became a "literate illiterate".

An Assemblyman of the Etuei Electoral Area at Mumford, Peter Nkansah bemoaned the rickety vehicles used by the private schools to convey children to and from their respective schools.

"The children in most cases too are overloaded thus making them very uncomfortable. These practices must therefore be stopped," he said.

Hayford Edu Quaye, immediate past Chairman of the GNAPS who presided over the function blasted teachers who go to school indecently dressed and in bathroom sandals.

He noted that out of the 20 districts in the Central Region, the Gomoa West placed 19th in the 2017 BECE and called for better performance this year.

Mr Quaye urged the government to take a second look at the wholesale promotion of teachers because it was not helping the students.

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