The Minister of Education has asked members of the Association of International Curricula Schools to take advantage of Government’s interventions, especially on tax to develop and provide improved quality education.
He said the government was ready to create an enabling environment for both the private and public actors in the country to operate without any difficulty since it was all for the good of the nation.
Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum made the call during a meeting with the National Schools Inspectorate Authority (NaSIA), and the leadership of the Association of International Curricular Schools (ASICS) in Accra.
The meeting was aimed at dialoguing on the new Cost Scale of fees for licensing private schools in Ghana.
The meeting was scheduled by the Minister after receiving a petition from the leadership of the Association regarding NaSIA’s varying licensing fee-charges for the various types of schools and the levels within which they operated.
Dr. Yaw Osei-Adutwum, after listening to all the parties, said he wanted fairness to prevail and therefore tasked NaSIA to engage a consultant to bring to the table a fairer system that would be accepted by all the parties.
The Minister, therefore, expressed his appreciation to NaSIA for heeding his call and thanked the leadership of the Association for working closely with NaSIA to ensure that they brought quality education to the doorstep of the Ghanaian child.
Background
As the regulatory body, NaSIA procured the services of an education consultant who through thorough desk research, compared the existing system with international best practices and arrived at a comprehensive structure for licensing schools in Ghana.
“The Cost Scale for School Licensing and Services” currently categorises all schools in Ghana and further classifies private schools using identified category factors such as the level and type of school, source of provision, school grade, and school enrolment ranges.
The Inspector-General of Schools (IGS) Dr Haggar Hilda Ampadu, explained that the essence of formulating the new Cost Scale was to adapt a sustainable system and ensure that some level of cost recovery in the operations of NaSIA concerning its dealings with pre-tertiary schools are realised.
To this, she again stated that the new scale now sees a down-ward charge for most of the schools and mentioned that the cost-sharing mechanism built into the new system would ensure that weaker schools were made to bear lighter burdens while ensuring that stronger ones are made to bear relatively fairer weights.
