Private schools cautioned against starting 2020/21 academic year before 2021

The Executive Director of the Africa Education Watch has disclosed some private schools in the country are planning to start the 2020/2021 academic year schedule for 2021 online for its students at a fee this year (2019).

Kofi Asare in an interview on the Citi Breakfast Show on September 1, 2020, monitored by Georgeweb.org raised a concern that some private schools are charging fees to provide academic works online for students before the 2020/2021 new academic year commences in January 2021.

Meanwhile, President Akufo-Addo in his recent nation’s address on behalf of the Ghana Education Service (GES) announced the next academic year will start in January 2021. He added that nursery, KG, primary, first year Junior and Senior High School students will also reopen school in 2021.

But, according to the Executive Director, some private schools with the necessary logistics and infrastructure are planning to run the regular academic calendar online at a cost to be incurred by parents.

Kofi Asare speaking in the interview said sessions cannot be considered part of the academic year adding that “any attempt by the private institutions to run a new academic year at this time will be illegal and in defiance of the government’s directive”.

“Whatever they are doing is good for the academic loss but it’s complimentary and not obligatory for parents to subscribe too. You can roll out this intervention but it shouldn’t b obligatory because it’s non-scoring. So if the school tells me that this term is obligatory, I won’t agree.”

“It is illegal and every parent can go to court on that. It will be inequitable because that wasn’t part of the arrangements for your child to be in school. The school doesn’t have the right to open the term. The government determines the term opening. You can’t force the parents to pay because there is no 2020/2021 term yet in Ghana.”

READ ALSO: We were not consulted before the reopening of schools – NAGRAT

However, the National Executive Director of the Ghana National Council of Private Schools (GNACOPS), Mr Enoch Kwasi Gyetuah when contacted by Georgeweb.org described the claims as false.

Source: Georgeweb.org