The Ashaiman Zone 1B chapter of the Ghana National Association of Private Schools (GNAPS) is unhappy with government’s decision to allow only Junior High School (JHS), 2 students to return to school on October 5, 2020.
It is therefore demanding an immediate reversal of the directive.
The continuous closure of schools for all other basic levels, the group says is hampering not only the businesses of school owners but staff and parents at large.
In a statement, the association criticised the government for not considering the cost of operations of private school owners in terms of salaries and other operational expenses.
“The Private Schools have a series of value claim which the President’s directive is automatically destroying. Food item suppliers who supply to the schools for the students feeding will be out of business and cannot recover their business funds. The financial institution that had provided facilities to the private schools for their business operations will be hard hit”, the association noted.
They also argued that the directive is not based on science and that the GES claim that the President’s focus is on safety and science is a “face sharing comment and is shallow in the face of the reality”.
Demands
In a three-point demand to the government, the group is asking for the following actions:
1. The Government or President should rethink through the current directives by allowing the committee set up by the Education Minister to come out with the modalities to resume schools.
2. The Government stimulus package should be released to Private Schools before 5th October 2020.
3. If the government could not change its directives, we demand that the government school consider the salaries of all the employees of the Private Schools as being done for the public schools. This is because we are all
SSNIT andGRA taxpayers. We are just not interested in tokenism by the receiving of one meal a day.
The Ashaiman branch of the Ghana National Association of Private Schools further warned that it will use the over 1.5 million members, staff and parents to “vote accordingly to save our businesses” if these demands are not met.
In other parts of the country, some heads of private schools have urged the Government of Ghana to create a fund to cater for the salaries of teachers in private schools across the country.
Those in the Sunyani Municipality of the Bono Region, for instance, say the contribution of private schools in the country cannot be underestimated and must be supported during these trying times.
“If you look at the number of private schools in the system and the role that we are playing in assisting the government to educate the children of Ghana and even non-citizens; I think it will serve the country better if the advice given to our President is heeded to; that a special package is given to the private schools knowing our peculiar circumstances”, one of the school heads said.