SENIOR HIGH SCHOOLS FAIL TO SUBMIT RETURNS ON FREE SHS POLICY

Majority of public schools benefiting from government’s Free Senior High School Education policy are reported to have not submitted their returns on funds released to them. Only 56 out of 674 Senior High Schools in the country have so far submitted their returns.

None of the schools in the Upper East, Upper West and Volta regions have submitted their returns. One school is said to have submitted in the Western Region and only two from the Ashanti Region. The Brong Ahafo, Central and Eastern Regions are reported to have submitted returns from four schools each while only five schools from the Greater Accra Region have submitted their returns. The region with the highest number of schools submitting their returns is the Northern Region, with 36 schools heeding to the requirement.

Schools benefitting from the Free Senior High School education policy were paid 20% of their funds, based on the number of students they could admit, enabling them acquire food items and to cater for the general running of the schools.

Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Prof. Kwasi Opoku-Amankwa, explained that, “the balance was to be released to a school once it has submitted its returns to the GES on the number of students they have actually enrolled and the necessary deductions made.”

Surprisingly, none of the ‘first-class’ schools have submitted their returns.

Prof. Opoku-Amankwa has however noted that the GES has decided to process the returns it has received so far for the remaining funds to be made available to the schools.

Source: Daily Graphic