Teachers Kick Against Use of Capitation Grant to Sponsor JHS Exams

Some Teachers have been kicked against the use of a capitation grant to sponsor JHS exams. NewsGhana24, your authoritative and credible education news recently published that JHS First Term Exams to Be Financed with Capitation Grant

The new development is worrying because the Ghana Education Service’s (GES) decision to authorize teachers to use capitation grants for the operation of schools to fund First Term Exams for Juniors of the High School has been challenged.

Teachers/Facilitators did not mince words as they debated the matter extensively on social media. There was a post that called the GES boss to order.

Below is the full content shared on the subject matter as the teachers kicked against the use of a capitation grant to sponsor JHS Exams.

SAY NO TO THE USE OF THE CAPITATION GRANT TO SPONSOR PRINTING OF EXAMS QUESTIONS.

GES Headquarters have recently directed that all JHS in the country should use their Capitation grant to sponsor the end of term exams again. Why should COHBS and Directors accept this capricious decision from the top? This is an act of intimidation, frustration and unfair treatment meted out to COHBS and basic School Teachers.

Some of us have taught for some time now and have also read about capitation grant guideline and don’t think that the Capitation grant must be used to print end of term exam questions for all basic school pupils.

Headteachers have never been allowed to use all the Capitation grant to print exams questions as they want the public to believe. Rather what we remember is that GES was even at a point against the District common exams. And for that reason, some Directors and Headteachers were even invited to appear before the disciplinary committee at GES headquarters on this issue.

Parents have been paying printing fee for their children over the years. So some of us were surprised to hear from the GES the last term that all the monies collected from the parents for the printing of the end of term’s exams must be refunded to parents and rather go and negotiate with local printers and credit the printing cost.

This decision was met with mixed reactions from teachers and some parents and so GES changed their decision last hour, only to fall on the meager capitation grant.

Why is our employer in this era of democracy wants to impose such outrageous decision on us to use this meager capitation grant which is not enough to even run the schools, to print exam questions? Why?

We see a lot of intimidation and inconsistencies in the decisions at the headquarters and is not fair. We think if the govt doesn’t want school children to pay exam fees which is good, *they must be ready to provide funds to sponsor that* and stop putting this needless pressure on Directors and Heads to compulsorily use the capitation to print exams questions. All Basic School teachers should rise and speak against that. GNAT and other teacher unions should also talk.

If teachers keep quiet on this, it will affect the running of the Basic schools seriously. The capitation grant was not meant for the printing of exam questions. The capitation grant is not enough and so when we budget a huge amount on one specific activity, approval is always denied.

So why is it that govt is trying to abuse the usage of the grant. We believe govt is not being fair to Basic Schools at all. This can’t happen at the SHS level. Govt subvention meant to pay students bills cannot be used to spend on exams?

Last year we saw their decision as an emergency one so heads complied with the use of the capitation grant for the exams. But if govt has failed to put proper measures down to sponsor the exams subsequently and rather decided to force heads to use the capitation grant to print exams questions this term again, then there is something wrong.
We all have to kick against it

So Teachers, COHBS, CODE, and all stakeholders must speak against this.

*#stop the use of capitation grant for exams#*

*# Basic Schools are suffering financially*

*# GES headquarters and MOE are not helping basic schools at all#*

Source: Newsghana24.com