Public school PTA dues payment voluntary even if approved – GES

The management of the Ghana Education Service (GES) says the payment of Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) dues or development levies is strictly voluntary, even when such collections have been approved by the appropriate authorities.

“Even when approved, such payments remain strictly voluntary, and no student should be denied any school service, right or benefit for non-payment,” GES stated in a statement sighted by Pretertiary.com.

The Ghana Education Service (GES) has therefore cautioned headteachers of government schools not to deny any student access to any school service or benefit for failing to pay Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) levies.

The clarification and warning follow reports received by the GES that some public Senior High Schools (SHSs) are demanding money from students, particularly first-year students, under the guise of PTA dues.

In the statement issued on Wednesday, October 22, and signed by Daniel Fenyi, Head of Public Affairs, the GES said no school has been authorized to collect any PTA or development levy without prior approval.

“We wish to state that no school has been authorized to collect any Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) or development levy without prior approval,” the Ghana Education Service (GES) statement noted.

It also directed that no head teacher or GES staff member should be involved in the collection of PTA levies, stressing that fundraising activities are the sole responsibility of duly elected PTA executives.

The Ghana Education Service (GES) has instructed all Regional and District Directors to ensure strict compliance with the directive and to report any breaches for immediate disciplinary action.

In other news, the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) and the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) have called for legal backing to safeguard the government’s decision to reinstate Parent-Teacher Associations (PTAs) in pre-tertiary schools.

Speaking in an interview monitored by Pretertiary.com, the General Secretary of GNAT, Thomas Musah, said the reinstatement of the PTAs is a good move; however, he stressed the need for legislation to prevent future governments from abolishing PTAs again.

“While we have restored the PTA, let us all agree that, as it was in the past, parents are the true owners of the schools. Now that we have returned the schools to them, no future government should come and reverse this decision.

We must agree on the kind of governance framework we want to maintain to ensure our children are properly trained,” the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) General Secretary, Thomas Musah, told Citi FM.

In a different interview, he said, “What we need to do now is to stop the political football where NDC has restored, then another government will come tomorrow and say no, when we do that, education doesn’t like that,” he pointed out.

The GNAT member added, “The frequent changes in education policies will bring along dislocation, you bring along fracture, distortion, confusion, and disorder. Education doesn’t like that, so if it is legislation, let’s do it, so no government comes tomorrow and says that they want to change it.”

The President of the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), Angel Carbonu, on his part, has also urged the central government to put in place stringent regulatory measures to ensure Parent-Teacher Associations operate within clear guidelines.

“What we have to do now we should set the regulation so that the PTAs can follow. It ought not to be an open-ended system where schools do what they like; an aspect should be how much parents should be levied. That I think should be regulated,” he stressed.