Turn no child away, Holness reminds schools

Observer Press Club

BY KIMONE THOMPSON Features Editor - Sunday thompsonk@jamaicaobserver.com

Sunday, September 05, 2010

A day before the 2010/2011 academic year begins, minister of education Andrew Holness is reiterating the ministry’s policy that no student at the secondary level should be barred from school for failure to pay auxiliary fees.

The minister, who had audience with reporters and editors at the Observer Press Club last Friday, said the ministry would not regulate those fees by making them compulsory and called on principals to better manage the co-operation between parents and schools.

“I’m already rationing by saying only the bright students will get the best spaces. I can’t place a price on education. That would be rationing and it would defeat the purpose of making sure that everybody has access to secondary education,” Holness said.

The Golding administration introduced a free tuition policy for secondary education when it came to power in 2007, replacing the 50/50 cost-sharing measure of the previous Government. Under the latter, students paid subsidised fees which comprised tuition — from which teachers’ salaries are drawn — and auxiliary fees — which support extra-curricular programmes. The new policy has removed completely the tuition component but individual schools have retained the auxiliary portion, with several of them reportedly turning students away for inability to come up with the funds.

But last week, the education minister recorded his displeasure with the practice. Calling it “unfair”, he said schools were receiving “enough” money from Government and had no right to withhold tutelage or grades from students.

“We provide enough to meet the core delivery, so it is unfair for a school to bar a student from accessing a teacher, for which we pay fully. It’s unfair for a school to bar a student from any part of the school campus because Government (is the one that) maintains it,” he said.

“Once they’ve been assigned to your school, you can’t deny someone the space because they can’t afford the registration package. That’s not on! You can’t deny the person their CXC results because they don’t pay their fees... You cannot deny them their transcripts either,” the minister said.

Schools are within their right to withhold such things as epaulettes, physical education gear and even graduation, he added, but nothing within the sphere of the teaching and learning process since that is already covered by Government.

“Government is already paying the teachers’ wage bill fully. There is no school that is paying the formal salary of a teacher,” said Holness. “There’s no school that is picking up part of the salary cost of a teacher. In addition, we give the schools grants for nutrition, they get grants for overhead utilities, they get grants for maintenance and some special grants for fencing, labs, etc, and they also get other kinds of support, so I don’t support the argument that they are not getting enough from Government.”

He is not against auxiliary fees, however, noting that historically, our education system was forged out of school/community partnerships. He just wants it managed in a less confrontational way.

“We don’t want to remove the partnership between parents and schools in making contributions... That is why I haven’t moved in any decisive way to regulate this co-operation, this partnership of contribution,” he explained. “But we advise schools that they should be careful how they do these things because it should not amount to discrimination.”

Did you watch American football's Super Bowl on Sunday?
	Yes, but just for the advertisements
	Yes, just for the game itself
	Yes, for both the game and advertisements
	No, I did not watch the Super Bowl.

View Results
Results published weekly in Sunday Finance

Username:
Password:

Police threat level at extreme

Turn no child away, Holness reminds schools