When the Free Senior High School (SHS) programme was introduced, there was a policy restriction that sought to prevent the imposition of any levy, necessary or otherwise, to be collected from parents on behalf of the schools.
The essence was to ensure that there was no justification for parents and guardians to complain that although the process is said to be free, yet they were compelled to make payments on behalf of their children and wards to the schools.
It meant that any service contracted by the government as part of the welfare of the students was to be borne by the state, to clearly distinguish between the obligations and responsibilities of parents as against the state, through the government.
of the levies abolished was the Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) contributions.
There were some who criticised the government for disenabling parents who could afford to support the schools from doing so.
The reality, however, was that even though PTA contributions originated as voluntary, at a certain stage, it became what could be described as voluntary compulsion (volucompo).
Students whose parents could not afford the contributions and those who were irresponsible in misusing such funds and not paying the PTA dues were often driven out of school, many times at critical periods such as during internal promotion examination, mock examinations or final year examinations.
Even if today PTA dues are considered as voluntary and school authorities not allowed to drive away students, we must not forget that it becomes a scar which could undermine the ego and self-confidence of most of the students whose parents could not afford.
It becomes a stigma, in the classrooms and at the dormitories.
It is in the same lines as why day students reluctantly join their mates at the dining halls in senior high schools although they are entitled to lunch every day.
It means therefore that the Ministry of Education and the Ghana Education Service (GES), must be wary in engaging any contractor for bulk supply of items needed by students but which are not to be freely supplied by the state but to be paid for by parents.
That is what could be facing the GES currently with the saturated advertised supply of trunks, chop boxes, mattresses and pillows by Edupack, in collaboration with the GES, which is playing the ostrich and pretending not to be aware.
Whilst it can never be said that the GES on its own can cancel the Free SHS programme, by default, the GES can clog the process and direct public angst against the government.
But, where there is no extensive deliberation with the key partners, especially parents, students and school management, any move to source materials directly to be sold by the schools to parents, could render the GES open and vulnerable to vile propaganda.
Essence
The essence of the message communicated in the advertisement played on mainstream mass media, including Channel One Television at prime time is that there is a more and refined method for parents and students to access four key items, trunks, chop boxes, mattresses and pillows, under a project by Edupack, pursued with the approval of the GES, to save them from the drudgery of sourcing for these items in the open market.
They are directed to follow a certain code and deposit money into designated accounts so that they can collect them when they report to school.
That is what the GES might be asking us to ignore relating to the GH¢1,500 that some unscrupulous individuals have gone on social media to describe as new fees to be imposed.
As a matter of fact, part of the advertisement presents the sourcing of such items in the open market as dangerous and irritating, to the extent that a woman, after buying the items, picks the trunk and heads to a parked private vehicle she does not own to put it in it only for the owner to take off, leaving a battered, hapless and frustrated woman remonstrating why she has to go through the kind of stress she had endured.
It is at this point that a young lady appears to console her to discard the old way and look for the forward-looking approach being implemented by Edupack with prior approval of the GES.
The advertisements have been around for too long, diffused and saturated for the GES to suddenly come around to deny any move to ask parents to pay money, not as school fees, but for certain basic and essential items to be acquired by parents for students. The GES cannot deny actual or constructive knowledge.
Thus, its statement signed by the head of Public Relations of the GES, Mr Daniel Fenny, begs the question whether indeed the GES contemplated such a move or agreed with a private investor to compel parents to buy such items from the GES-approved supplier, although we are in a free market environment.
Story
Thus, the story that "the GES has appealed to members of the public and media organisations to desist from creating, publishing or circulating false information capable of causing anxiety and confusion among parents, students and the wider public", needs elaboration.
The GES further urges parents, students, guardians and the public not to make payments to anyone based on the information circulating in the social media, that it has agreed with Edupack under a new policy to supply trunks, chop boxes and mattresses.
The information about the supplies is, thus, not only on social media, but equally mainstream mass media, including Channel One Television, which I can testify.
Indeed, it has been said that members of the Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools (CHASS) are not at ease at all about the development. Whilst some of them are reluctant, those who have accepted the project in principle are not happy about the proposed commission of about 0.2 per cent due to the schools.
Thus, the GES might be playing the ostrich if it suggests lack of knowledge about the promotion bout the sale of the four items by the respective SHS or SHTS when students report to school.
If indeed, the GES is unaware about the Edupack project, then on whose authority are the advertisements published regularly and daily in most of our influential media houses.
Most probably, the supposed good intention has gone sour because it appears the GES is steam-rolling the headmasters into acquiescence to cajole parents into buying from the schools.
That is at the risk and disadvantage of ordinary Ghanaian micro and small-scale traders in the business of trunks, chop boxes, mattresses and pillows.
If the issue is not nipped in the bud, it could grow to become a dangerous termite that would turn into wholesale importation of the same items on the spurious excuse that local manufacturers cannot cope with the scale of supply.
This cannot be readily wished away because how many factories currently manufacture the kind of plastic boxes required to be used because the wooden chop boxes are being claimed to be the source of bed bugs, although the insects live on mattresses than in the boxes?
Beyond local producers, does it mean that parents who have such items, either from their older children who have completed secondary school or as private property cannot reuse them for their children?
It does not make sense for the GES to arrange with any business interest to create a monopoly at the expense of local artisans and parents.
No matter the arrangement, parents must be allowed a choice, either to acquire such items from the local market or buy them from the schools.
It must be on the basis of free choice, not made compulsory or obligatory.
I, thus, urge the Minister of Education, Haruna Iddrisu, to bring the GES to order by abrogating the programme and leave parents and guardians on their own as to the sources for acquiring the items.
