BOARD chairs, principals and bursars from secondary schools across the island are expected to meet with Minister of Education, Youth and Information Senator Ruel Reid today at the Jamaica Conference Centre in downtown Kingston to try to hammer out a compromise on the Government’s proposed new tuition fee policy.

The education minister last announced the removal of auxiliary fees in secondary schools which, he said, would be supplemented by increasing the ministry’s tuition subvention to the institutions from $11,500 to $19,000.

But school administrators did not receive the news with open arms, with some cautioning that the move was too sudden. Some school heads said their institutions were already scraping to make ends meet even with the tuition fees and the subvention, and said they fear that schools could come under great financial burden, particularly to fund non-academic programmes.

Against the backlash that ensued from administrators and other stakeholders such as the Jamaica Teachers’ Association and the Jamaica Association of Principals of Secondary Schools, Senator Reid and his team are expected to present the details of the new policy today, as well as address issues raised by school heads and come up with a plan to implement the new fee regime for the next school year in September.

Reid said that the $2-billion increase in expenditure to fund this initiative would be financed over two budget periods and disbursed to the schools in tranches. He said the ministry was devising a formula to ensure equity in the subventions to each school.

“Unfortunately the whole thing has been done upside-down. The consultations ought to have taken place before,” Opposition spokesperson on education Ronald Thwaites said yesterday. “I insist that no school should have one dollar less than it was getting before from the mix of Government help and parents contributions. The schools need additional money; anything else would be a step backwards,” Thwaites told the Jamaica Observer.

He said that the average $28,000, which up to last year was being spent per child between auxiliary fees, government subvention and PATH benefits, was still not enough. “It was not enough [and] we knew that and would have increased it as the budget would allow. Offering $19,000 is calling very short,” he stated.

“How will school principals manage? Why not let parents who can continue pay? Even if you have 10 cents, you ought to contribute it as a matter of obligation, not charity. It’s one of the first priorities for every family Thwaites posited.