By Hajaratu Kalokoh
The Government of Sierra Leone will not be paying examination fees for private schools from next year, Politico has learnt.
At official at the Ministry of Basic and Senior Secondary Education (MBSSE) said this current academic year will be the last for the government to pay for public exams for candidate taking the Basic Examination Certificate Examination (BECE) and National Primary School Examination (NPSE) exams.
“The Sierra Leone government will continue to pay NPSE and BECE fees for all candidates in public and private schools. However, this will be the last time the government will be paying for candidates in private schools. Starting next academic year, they will only pay for candidates in state-owned or state assisted schools” Abdul Karim Sowe, a senior official at MBSSE, told Politico.
The decision which was reached by government after the budget hearings in November last year provoked huge debate amidst serious concerns among private school owners and parents. Many condemned the decision outrightly.
Chairman, National Union of Private Schools, Rev. Victor Davies, told Politico that the decision was not fair to the children or school owners.
“Our point of argument is that these kids are also Sierra Leonean kids and their parents are also paying tax to the government. There is nothing private schools are benefiting from the government and the little we are receiving in the payment of NPSE and BECE fees are being withdrawn from us,” Rev. Davies lamented.
Rev. Davies said that while they felt sorry about the decision, they hope that a promise to reconsider the decision in the future will materialize.
“The government made it very clear that with the free quality education they wanted to focus more on public schools and they had more on their table to handle now and the resources were not available and therefore they could not continue paying for us for now. The minister [however] promised that if things got better, they would revisit that (decision),” the Davies said.
With the introduction of the Free Quality Education program las academic year, a lot of questions were raised, among them the role of the Government in paying examination fees.
Government’s announcement on the payment of examination fees for the current academic year also comes with an instruction for schools to refund examination fees that they have already collected from parents.
The situation has left some private school owners in a difficult position. Some of the schools have already made payments for the exams that are normally written in May and June.
Mary Teworh Allie, Principal of Sierra International Academy, told Politico that as a school they had not heard about government’s decision to even pay the fees this year.
Mrs Allie said: “This is new to us. We have not heard about it and we have not yet received any strategic document from the ministry that they will continue to pay examination fees for BECE and NPSE for private schools.”
“We have already paid our examination fees to WAEC,” she added.
Davies said the private school owners had written to WAEC over the festive holidays to ensure they refund the moneys that they had paid to for the exams.
He said: “The Union has sent an official letter (to WAEC) over the holiday to request refund of the NPSE and BECE fees to schools that have paid already. We are yet to receive any response from them. If WAEC refund the money to schools, we will make sure parents get their money.”
He added: “The issue is about getting WAEC (West Africa Examination Council) refunding the money. That’s what we are working on now.”
WAEC did not respond to our request for comment on the matter. But sources within the council say they haven’t received official communication from government to enable them pay the refunds.
But even if they receive the communication from official channels, there is a chance that WAEC might not be in the position to make the refunds. This is because the government is heavily indebted to the Council through backlog of examination fees.
Last year during the presentation of the 2020 budget, officials from the Ministry of Basic Education said they owe WAEC up to US$ 12 million. The ministry even proposed the payment of debt in bulk, a plan the Principal Deputy Financial Secretary, Mathew Dingie objected to, saying: “it is not possible”.
“They budgeted for all that US$12 million to be paid at a go and we know that is not possible. So, we have advised them to go and develop a payment plan wherein we can pay over the next three to four years. Hence, we pay, and we continue to pay the current subscription WAEC, will be ok with that. But we don’t want to commit to pay all the money in one year for arrears that have accumulated over the last five to six years,” he told Politico in November last year.
This year government has already set aside Le 1.4 trillion to spend on education, representing 22% of the total budget allocation for the current financial year, up one percent from last year’s.
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