Bid to standardise public school fees

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MBABANE - The Ministry of Education and Training is currently in an exercise, that if implemented, would see every learner paying the same amount of school fees in all public schools.

According to well-placed sources, the Ministry of Education and Training had advised principals to appoint their own sigejana, to make their own findings and come up with a suitable amount, that would be paid by every pupil attending public schools in the country.

The primary motives for the standardisation of school systems are to protect learners’ educational experiences and ensure that all learners, regardless of where they live, have comparable school experiences resulting in similar learning outcomes.

It allows them (pupils) to have confidence in the particular school they are enrolled at and completely eliminates inferiority.

Further, it has been gathered that a committee, which was headed by Dominic Nxumalo and Sifiso Vilakati, had been formed to focus on the matter ; however, there were no upcoming reports as some head teachers had mixed feelings over the whole exercise.

“In the not so distant past, government set up sigejane that was led by Dominic Nxumalo in his then capacity as SASA (Swaziland Association of Schools Administrators) Chairperson. Schools were categorised according to and by large enrolment, the report was presented to Cabinet but it was then stashed under the carpet.

DiscloseD

Some schools were to charge over E7 000 per learner,” disclosed the source. Another source disclosed that this new move or exercise that was currently being undertaken by the ministry would not be well received by public schools, located in the rural areas.

A head teacher, who preferred to remain anonymous, told this publication that in the event Cabinet endorsed this figure, parents in the rural areas would not be able to afford to pay this amount of money.

“In my school, the maximum school fee is E4 500, far less than the E7 000 and I can only imagine and wait to see if the parents would receive this news of the standardisation of the school fees well.

“However, to us principals, these are incredible news as the E7 000 school fee is not only ideal but relevant to this time as you know that prices of commodities have skyrocketed,” opined the head teacher.

Meanwhile, a principal in one of the schools located in the urban area, who also preferred to remain anonymous, said that the E7 000 amount, if approved, would cripple and even affect the end of year results in her school.

“Education has become very expensive and as a result of the skyrocketed prices in the market, we were forced to increase the school fees to E12 000 but if government eventually approves the E7 000 school fees for every learner, then we will be greatly affected,” the principal pointed out, yesterday.

Warning

Sources have said that what propelled government to undertake this exercise was the fact that some public schools were now charging exorbitant fees and have continued to do so much against the warning from the ministry.

Another teacher said that if government wanted this exercise to succeed, then the ministry would have to categories the schools in the urban area to class A, those in semi-urban areas to class B and lastly those located in far remote rural areas should be classified as class C. “Then government would have a suitable standard school fee for each category and that would lessen any resistance on the part of head teachers and parents.”

Currently, there are over 217 junior and secondary schools in the country, with an enrollment of 83 096 learners and a teaching force of 4 358 teachers.

Efforts to contact the former SASA Chairperson, Dominic Nxumalo, proved futile as his cellphone had been diverted.

He was also sent a WhatsApp message by this reporter, which he received as it had been blue-ticked.

Sifiso Vilakati was called and she told this reporter that she had no update available concerning this exercise.