Bolga school heads, supervisors attend capitation grants workshop

Bolgatanga, Oct. 6, GNA - Mr Anthony Aziaba, Bolgatanga Municipal Director of Education, announced on Wednesday that, 42 per cent of the first term capitation grants has been released to basic schools in the municipality. Mr Aziaba said this at a two-day briefing of 95 heads of basic school and circuit supervisors on guidelines for the utilisation of capitation grants in Bolgatanga.

He said every pupil now takes 30,000 cedis annually instead of 25,000 cedis per male pupil and 35,000 cedis per female under the pilot programme for 40 deprived districts.

He warned heads against inflating figures of the enrolment to collect more capitation grants, as they would be exposed to the audit team, which would go round to check the number of pupils in each school. Mr Ken Dabuo, the Upper Regional Director of Education said the Free Compulsory, Universal Basic Education (FCUBE) policy, a constitutional mandate to put all children of school-going age in school by 2005, has not achieved its goal.

Mr Dabuo said, since Ghana was a signatory to the Education for All by the Year 2015 Declaration, it had to solicit for assistance from its donor partners to ensure the effective implementation of the FCUBE, to relieve parents of the burden of paying school levies, so as to entice more children to enrol in school.

He called on parents to ensure that all their children go to school, as the capitation grants have absorbed the payment of sports and cultural fees, which were a major problem previously. Mr Dabuo said the capitation grants were geared towards enrolment and retention drive to enhance gender friendly schools. He said the grants would only be accessed through the drawing of School Performance Improvement Plans and urged heads of basic schools to put to good use what they have learnt at the workshop.