Following the reopening of Senior High Schools around the country for third-year students, the Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools (CHASS) is urging the Ghana Education Service (GES) and the Education Ministry to move quickly in releasing funds to schools for day-to-day operations.
According to Alhaji Yakub Ahmad Bin Abubakar, National President of CHASS, a pause in disbursing funds to different schools makes operating certain schools extremely challenging.
As a result, he is advocating for the early allocation of funds to ensure the seamless operation of classrooms.
“For the time being, the release of funds has proven to be difficult. We were told that they would arrive before the form three students arrived. However, they have begun to return to kindergarten, but we have yet to collect the funds. I spoke with GES management yesterday, and they informed me that they are almost through with the release of the funds, and that we can expect it any day now. So we are also hoping that it will reach our accounts soon so that we can use it to operate the schools smoothly, particularly with the influx of form three students,” he said.
As a result, he urged the “management of the Ghana Education Service to expedite measures so that we have the monies hitting our accounts by the end of this week so that it can ease any challenge that may arise as a result of that.”
CHASS expressed questions regarding inadequate furniture in several schools less than a month earlier, urging the Ghana Education Service to delay the reopening of schools for Form Three pupils.
While schools have reopened for those pupils, CHASS says that although it is now happy to receive them, it needs the issues surrounding furniture supply to be resolved as soon as possible.
“As we speak, thanks to the structure that has been placed in motion, the gold track of the Form 1 students have departed for their houses, making space for us to accept the Form 3 students. Though the number of Form 3 students is far greater than the number of gold track students who have left, we can handle them for the time being in comparison to the difficulty that we would have faced if they had arrived to reach the maximum complement of Form Ones in the school now.”
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“The other area was furniture and beds, and then benches in the dining hall and tables,” he said. GES management has told us that they are going through the procurement phase with regards to these matters. We won’t be able to have those right away, so we’ve convinced management that although we can make do with what we have now, it would be difficult, so they can expedite progress on the acquisition phase to enable us to have those so that the system can be easier for us to operate the schools effectively.
In terms of the supply of COVID-19 personal protective equipment, CHASS reports that numerous schools are receiving their products.
SOURCE: ATLFMONLINE
