No second-cycle school has been authorised to collect parent-teacher association (PTA) or development levy, the Ghana Education Service (GES) has warned.
Consequently, it has directed that “no head teacher or GES staff member of any educational institution should be involved in the collection of PTA levies”.
The GES, in a statement, said its management had received reports that some second-cycle institutions were demanding and collecting various levies under the guise of PTA dues.
“We wish to state that no school has been authorised to collect any PTA or development levy without prior approval. In basic schools, such approval must be granted by the District Education Oversight Committee (DEOC), through the District Director of Education, and in second-cycle schools by the Regional Director of Education,” the statement signed by the Head of Public Relations of the GES, Daniel Fenyi, said.
Payments
Even when approved, it said, such payments remained strictly voluntary, and that no student should be denied any school service, right or benefit for non-payment.
It said regional and district directors of education were directed to monitor compliance and report any breach for immediate disciplinary action.
As fresh senior high school (SHS) students report to school for the commencement of the 2025-2026 academic year, some schools are demanding that parents pay PTA levies as part of the registration process.
Some schools are even reported to be turning parents away because of PTA dues.
Responding to the development, the Executive Director of the Africa Education Watch, Kofi Asare, said: “We have information that many schools are not respecting the PTA guidelines.
The PTA guidelines require that the Regional Director of Education must receive a work plan and a request for approval for the PTA dues to be charged, and the Regional Director must approve the request before the PTAs can charge dues on their membership”.
Mr Asare, who chaired the committee which developed the guidelines introduced about three weeks ago, said PTAs were yet to be reconstituted in line with the guidelines because technically, PTAs did not exist.
“So PTAs are yet to be reconstituted in line with the guidelines. No Regional Director has approved PTA dues for any PTA, so any school charging PTA dues is doing so illegally.
“Many of the schools are charging PTA dues. We have had issues at Tema Senior High School (TEMASCO), where a boy was allegedly turned away because his mother couldn’t pay GH¢ 500,” he revealed.
At Huni Valley Senior High School, Mr Asare said fresh students were being asked to pay PTA dues.
He disclosed further that in many of the GES and Ghana TVET Service schools, PTA dues were being charged, “and so we have a situation where generally the guidelines for the PTAs have been justified by the schools and they are doing what they want.”
He said those schools were aware of the guidelines since they were communicated to them two weeks prior to the commencement of the academic year.
“But we all know why schools require them to charge PTAs even though they have been warned against it. It is clearly an act of extortion for anyone in the school environment to take money from parents and not give them any receipts,” he said, alleging that the schools were not issuing receipts for the PTA dues.
“They are not issuing receipts because they know what they are doing is not good – whether it is a school charging the PTA dues or a PTA that has come to the school to take the money,” he said.
Process
Mr Asare said that before parents completed the admission process, there was a point where they would have to pay the PTA dues.
He mentioned schools, including the Presbyterian Boys SHS, Adisadel College and Holy Child School, as some of the institutions that were not collecting PTA dues.
“Apart from that, in the many schools that we have visited, it is common; PTA dues are being charged from both TVET schools and GES schools.
We have reported some previous schools to the Ghana TVET Service, including St. Paul’s Technical Institute in Kukurantumi,” he said.
Eduwatch, he said, was worried because one of the biggest challenges in education was not the absence of policies, but it was of enforcement.
“So here is a beautiful guideline developed, but enforcement is weak.
We don’t see any mechanisms on the ground to enforce compliance, and that is a worry,’’ he said.
The guideline, Mr Asare said, had been issued, but there were no monitoring mechanisms on the ground, and everybody was doing what they wanted.
“So our fear is that we will get back to the extortion regime we found ourselves in, which led to the dismantling of PTAs and the constitution of PAs.
“GES has come out, but GES cannot be warning the schools three days after they have collected the money,” he said.
The warning from the GES, he said, came too late.
“Warning them means that they’ve lost it, because they’ve already collected the money. About 80 per cent of students who were released by now have already arrived in schools.
“They started arriving over the weekend, so it’s too late.
The warning came late. We can’t be warning schools at this point,” he said.
He said the GES should strengthen monitoring and surveillance in schools.
Credit: Graphic
