"CHOP-CHOP" AT BAWKU SEC/TECH

THE AUTHOURITIES of the Bawku Senior High and Technical School in the Upper East Region on Monday faced the humiliation of their lives as they came face-to-face with the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament and failed to justify why they had diabolically imposed huge unapproved fees and levies on the poor students of the school.

Even though Second Cycle education in Ghana is supposed to be free for all students, the Headmaster of the Bawku Senior High and Technical School, Linus Tuuli has been slapping all first year students with a whopping Three Hundred Ghana Cedis (GH¢300.00) as admission fee. Aside that, the committee found out that the School Authourity was also causing the students to pay other unapproved levies including, entertainment fee, sports fee, PTA, cultural fee, development fee and additional GH¢10.00 from each of the 1,630 students as fence wall construction fee.

The Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, Albert Kan Dapaa and other members especially the Member of Parliament for Dormaa, Kwaku Agyeman Manu were fuming with excessive rage, as they suspected that the behaviour of the School authourity might have scared a large number of parents and guidance from seeking admission in the school for their wards.

He said the high fee being charged by the school was completely defeating the purpose of the government’s free basis education for all especially the rural poor.

The Public Accounts Committee was sitting in Tamale to examine the Auditor General’s Reports on accounts of 42 pre-university institutions in the Northern, Upper East and Upper West Regions between 2004 and 2007.

Some of the School summoned before the Committee include; the Navrongo Senior High School, Awe Secondary Technical, Bawku Secondary Technical, Gbewaa Training College, St. John Bosco Training College, Bolgatanga SHS, Tamale Business Secondary School, Dabokpa Vocational Institute and the Savelugu School for the Deaf.

The rest are Saboba EP Secondary School, Nando SHS, Lawra SHS, Kanton SHS and Kaleo Sec/Tech among others.

However, the Public Accounts Committee has therefore charged the School authority to as a matter of urgency review the cost of admission fee they were charging so as to reduce the financial burden of parents and also make education more attractive to all children.

But in trying to explain himself, the Headmaster told the Committee that the fee was duly approved by the Upper East Regional Directorate of the Ghana Education Service to enable the procure some vital textbooks to supplement what were being supplied by the government.

But a representative of the Upper East Regional Director of Education completely denied the claims by the Headmaster and however admitted that he was hearing about the figure for the first time.

The GES representative further accused the School authourities for sometimes giving false reports to the GES.

The Committee quickly pounced on the Upper East GES for being part of the blame, accusing them of poor monitoring and supervision.

The Bawku Senior High and Technical School authourities also received some lashes from the Committee for failing to submit their 2007 budget expenditure for auditing and also failing to produce proper documentation on certain firewood purchased for the school.

The Headmaster of the Awe Senior High and Technical School in Navrongo, Paul Achana almost faced the same charges from the Committee for also charging the students with some unapproved fees.

Mr Albert Kan-Dapaah, Chairman of the Committee urged public institutions to abide by the legal and professional accounting principles when handling public funds. He said the heads of these institutions would be answering questions relating to lapses in expenditure and possibly face sanctions.