GAYLE...parents show greater interest if they have to fork out some of the money for their children's education

FEARING that their institutions will lurch back to the financial crises of the 1970s and 1980s, the principals of the bulk of Jamaica's secondary schools have warned the Government against the removal of tuition fees and said that parents should contribute to the cost of their children's education.

It was the second school-based association to flash a red-light to the Government on the issue in less than a week, following Thursday's warning by Bursars Association of Jamaica president, Kofi Nkrumah-Young, that ending the so-called cost-sharing will likely hurt school budgets.

Last night, Brandy Gayle, the president of the Jamaica Association of Principals in Secondary Schools (JAPSS), argued that eliminating school fees will primarily benefit people who can afford to pay, rather than the poor.

"There is, in the system, a significant amount of parents who can pay and do pay," Gayle told the Observer. "The majority of the persons who can't afford to pay are getting assistance... So the persons who would benefit are the persons who can afford the $6,000 to $8,000 who would not have to pay anymore."

It is estimated that the Government pays at least a portion of tuition fees of 120,000 secondary school students -- nearly 50 per cent of all children on the rolls -- under various welfare schemes, including the recently-launched Programme for Advancement Through Education and Health (PATH).

In any event, Gayle said that any decision to remove school fees should be accompanied by bankable assurances that "schools will be funded at the levels that they are now funded and better".

Gayle's organisation represents principals of 105 institutions or approximately two-thirds of the island's secondary schools, and the issue of school finances was high on their agenda at their annual general meeting in Kingston on Saturday.

"Principals agreed that free education at this time is impractical," the JAPSS said in a report on its key decisions. "... Principals want to revert to the cost-sharing programme in which parents contribute to their children's education."

The principals group also stressed that it remained committed to schemes such as PATH "and any other programme that will support the welfare of those in need".

Gayle said that he planned to initiate discussions with the other organisations of head teachers, the Jamaica Association of Principals and Vice Principals, as well as with the bursars' group for them to put a joint position on the issue to the Government.

Up to the last school year, Jamaican parents were required to contribute between 15 per cent and 20 per cent of the estimated cost for their children's tuition in secondary schools.

But the Government, at the start of the new school year, froze payments at existing levels and undertook to take up the shortfall, as the first move to keeping an election promise last year to phase out secondary school fees by 2006.

This undertaking by the People's National Party (PNP) administration was a direct response to the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party, which, in the campaign for the October 2002 general election, said it would immediately remove the fees if it was elected to form the government.

The issue of school fees has received renewed attention recently in the face of a growing debate over the state of education in Jamaica and an agreement between the Government and Opposition in Parliament to take the issue of education outside the realm of partisan point scoring.

As part of the pact, the Government undertook to incrementally lift the budgetary allocation to education to a minimum 15 per cent of total expenditure, from the current 10 per cent.

But these undertakings have been made at a time when the administration is facing a fiscal crunch, is under pressure from money markets to slash its deficit and government ministries find it difficult to pay its creditors.

Issues such as these worry head teachers such as Gayle, who has been a principal for over 20 years and recalls the period of the late 1970s to the mid-1980s when there was "free education" in a climate of economic stagnation.

"Those who were in the system during that period know the horror stories of trying to keep schools open," he said last night. "...Are we going back to the time when you had to go fund raising to keep schools open?"

There is also a philosophical underpinning to the position by the principals for supporting the school fees for those who can afford to pay.

"We have found that there is a greater interest on the part of parents if they have to fork out some of the money for their children's education," said Gayle, who is currently the principal of Manchester High School. He has also served at Brandon Hill in St Catherine and Titchfield in Portland.

But even with the cost-sharing programme in place, several schools, especially the upgraded high schools which traditionally have lower rates of compliance, fear a cash crunch, despite the Government's topping up to off-set the freeze.

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