Ministry spends c1.1b on remedial classes

The Ministry of Education spent C496.6 million as allowance for organisations of the remedial classes for re-sits of last year's Senior Secondary School Certificate Examinations (SSSCE) for five months. Mr Alex Tettey- Enyo, Deputy Director-General of the Ghana Education Service, who disclosed this, said another C651.5 million was used to pay the examination fees for the 29,930 resitters..

Mr Tettey-Enyo who was reacting to complaints by some organisers of the remedial classes, particularly teachers, over the delay in the payment of their allowances, denied allegations that the Ministry deliberately refused to pay the allowances due to lack of funds.

He attributed the delay to the inability of the district and regional directors of education to submit the necessary inputs and raise vouchers on time at the end of month for the payment of allowances to the teachers.

Mr Tettey-Enyo said vouchers for October, which were the last month of programme, in the sum of C155,325,935 were ready and have been collected for all the regions with the exception of the Ashanti and Upper East regions. Teachers who handled the five-month classes were paid C1,500 per hour while the course centre directors received C2,500 per day Guidance and Counselling officers had C2,500 per day and laboratory and workshop attend-ants each took C1,000 per day.

Mr Tettey-Enyo said a total of X73,120,490 was paid for June and July, C141,809,035 in August while C126,230,430 was paid for September. He said a total of 149 course centres were created performed poorly in the first SSSCE in 1993.

They were given free tuition and re-registration for subjects ranging from one to six for the 1994 SSSCE.. The deputy director-general described the programme as being "satisfactorily executed, given the short notice and the general atmosphere of misgivings and criticism". He expressed the hope that the resitters performance would reflect the amount of money, zeal and painful planning that "have brought this programme to a successful end".