Capitation Grant Is Flopping

*CAPITATION GRANT IS FLOPPING; WHAT CAN BE DONE ABOUT IT?*

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In 2005, the government came out with a policy of publicly funding basic

education as part of its efforts to achieve its Millennium Development Goals

(MDGs). The purpose of the policy – widely known as the “capitation grant” -

was to support the more vulnerable in society to have access to quality

education. It was also intended to improve the quality of education and

reduce the burden on teachers. After almost 6 years in operation is the

program achieving its aims and making the right impact on our educational

system? Will Ghanaians be able to say that the capitation has actually been

able to achieve its objectives? Has it been a blessing to our educational

system or a curse? These are the issues that will be given attention in this

article.

The capitation grant started with limited education (a worrying feature of

most government interventions) of the general public regarding its purpose

and accountability frameworks. This naturally has led many parents into

thinking that they are not to pay anything for their wards’ educational

expenses. It has furthermore tended to make many parents irresponsible

towards their children's post-classes needs.

Some parents even fail to provide books, uniforms and other basic materials,

not to talk of the increasingly critical extra classes, to support their

children. This, as you might have guessed, has become a headache for many

school heads and teachers in the country.

Following the same pattern, no form of public education was conducted for

the PTAs (Parents –Teachers Association) and the School Management

Committees during the implementation of the grant and yet they are supposed

to sign off on the paperwork before the relevant banks release grant funds

to the schools. Even though this intervention was to support parental

efforts, no opportunity has been created to solicit their input, or to

involve them in the local governance of the program – to the extent that the

vast majority of parents have no idea about how these funds are allocated in

the schools.

In one of my many interactions with PTAs, a PTA chairman said they are only

contacted when the money is to be released and then only because the school

heads require their signatures to facilitate the release. After the money

has been released and they begin to ask questions as to how the funds are

being used, school officials tell them that all outstanding issues are the

school administration and the Ghana Education Service, and thus they (the

PTA) have nothing to do with the ongoing management of the funds.

Indeed, I will suggest that parents are paying more today than was the case

in the days before the capitation grant came on-stream. It is surely worse

now seeing as some institutional heads and their teachers now decide how

much they should levy each child. Things like extra classes, PTA dues and

examination fees are being charged exorbitantly by schools and children who

are not able to afford them are sacked until their parents pay such fees.

I know what I am talking about; my brother is in a public school and I pay

about 16 Ghana cedis every term to cover these expenses. This has made many

teachers more interested in offering extra classes and charging students for

same than focussing on normal classroom teaching. The sad irony is that if

our teachers were dedicated enough to use their normal classroom hours

judiciously, there will be no need for extra classes in the first place,

much less the current situation where without these classes they apparently

are unable to take pupils through the required curriculum.

There is no clear cut guidance from school administrations on what might be

considered appropriate fees for extra classes. Unbridled money-seeking has

been allowed free rein. Most parents pay these monies, though they can

barely afford to do so, and then hope to God that their wards will reap the

results during examinations. Naturally, there are no standards or clear

performance expectations on the part of teachers. It is clear from the

foregoing that the capitation grant has been in anyway useful in addressing

these dire issues on the ground.

In July 2010, CDD-Ghana reported that they have found frightening levels of

leakages in the disbursement of the capitation grant from the GES

headquarters down to the beneficiary schools. This is indeed the fact of the

case as the schools clearly are not benefitting from the full complement of

resources supposedly made available through the capitation grant. The

evidence is littered all over our primary and secondary campuses in the form

of deteriorating infrastructure, malnourishment and declining test scores

across Ghana.

A significant chunk of the capitation grant money ends up in the pockets of

some school officials and their favourite contractors, though it is highly

unlikely that school officials alone can act with such reckless impunity

without cover from some senior civil servants and politicians.

The children for whom this intervention was expected to benefit do not get

to enjoy. Parents are still struggling to pay for their children's

education. In 2008, a friend of mine, a teacher, and I visited her

headmaster to seek permission for her to travel to Cote D'Ivoire. After

having been granted permission to do so, my friend told the Headmaster to

keep her share of the capitation grant until her return. This prompted me to

ask the Head on what grounds the capitation grant is supposed to be shared

among teachers and Heads? All that the headmaster had to say was: “ the

District Director has taken his share and so who are you going to report me

to?”. He said this looking a bit drunk. I was disappointed but not too

surprised.

What is annoying is how our politicians like to come out and portray things

as if all was on course. Last year, some JHS students sitting for the BECE

paid almost GHC 100.00 for the year and this included:

Registration fees

GHC 23.00

Mock exams (5 mock exams) GHC 20.00

(GHC 4.00 per mock exam)

PTA, Exams fees and Extra classes GHC

48.00 (GHC16 per term)

And we call this an era of “progressively free education”?

I am not saying parents should not spend on their wards’ education but as

can be seen, the implementation of the capitation grant has done next to

nothing to bring significant relief to parents, and pupils are the worse for

it.

The humble opinion of my organisation is that direct subsidies should be

applied at school level to cover these fees and charges if government is

genuinely interested in the welfare of pupils and students.

This should bring clarity to the minds of parents as to what their

responsibilities are. To create the impression that government is

responsible for the upkeep of pupils and students when it is so manifestly

not, and thereby to breed attitudes of irresponsibility on the part of

parents so inclined, is to compound an already dire situation.

Furthermore, the rampant corruption that has beset the implementation of the

policy clearly point to insufficient transparency, which is a mark of the

murkiness surrounding the mechanics of the policy. A direct offset subsidy

should simplify matters by clarifying which fees government has absorbed and

which parents are still responsible for and leave little room for the kind

of corruption that thrives on bureaucratic complexity and lack of effective

public education. Of course, public education is better served by clear

systems and procedures.

A recent report by the Ghana Education Service indicated that, 64% of

school pupils cannot read and write. This is not a problem you can solve by

simply throwing money at. It requires an acknowledgment of failing policies

and the humility and readiness to act to rectify them.

Increasing the capitation grant and reducing funding for High school

education is like robbing Peter to pay Paul. One may even go further and

argue that government should implement program-based subsidies at the high

school level where the costs are really high and not the basic level, where

a simpler free tuition mechanism (with parents being sensitised to their

role to offer material support) is what is required. But that is another

discussion.

If however government is disinclined to consider such a radical proposal as

scrapping the capitation grant in its entirety, then the least it can do is

order a wholesale review and re-evaluation of the structure and rationale of

the policy.

God bless our Homeland Ghana!!!!

Kwabena Danso

Country Director

Yonso Project

Ghana

0249157348