By Damion Mitchell, Staff Reporter
THE MAJORITY of some 80 re-classified (upgraded) high schools, with a total population of 120,000 students, face closure come January if they do not receive substantial amounts in school fees owed by the Ministry of Education for students who benefited under the Government's school fee assistance programmes and by parents, according to the Association of Principal and Vice Principals.
"Our schools now face threats of closure due to lack of funds (because) we are starved of resources (and) we are starved of finances," Alphansus Davis, principal of the Spaldings High School in Clarendon, told a Gleaner Editors' Forum at the company's North Street offices in downtown Kingston yesterday.
Meanwhile, closure of the Alston High School in St. Catherine may be even sooner. "Right now I am contemplating if I can continue until next week because I don' t have any money to pay the light bill and I don't have any money to pay water," said Yvonne Kong, principal, another of the five attending the forum.
COMMITMENT
Earlier this year, the Ministry of Education gave a commitment that it would be financing the school fees of some 44,000 students who were selected for assistance under the Government's Programme of Advancement Through Health and Education (PATH). Additionally, it had assumed responsibility for half of the school fees of more than 100,000 students under the Cost Sharing Programme.
But the principals say that with less than one month to go before the end of the first school term, the Ministry of Education has not given a clear indication as to when the payments ranging between $500,000 and $6 million will be made.
Mrs. Kong said that of the 855 students enrolled at her school, only 11 had paid their fee of $5,500 in full, while 203 had paid a part totalling just over $600,000, including $251,000 in subsidy from the Ministry of Education. However, she said this was minuscule to fund the school's $4.5 million budget.
"I am now stuck because of the $400,000 that I collected, I had to pay $270,00 for light bill because they had cut off the light," she said.
OPERATIONAL BUDGET
And Mr. Davis said that his school was owed nearly $6 million in school fees by the Education Ministry a significant portion of its $11.9 million operational budget. Of this amount he said nearly $3 million represented fees of nearly 500 students who qualified under the PATH programme and another $2 million for those who benefited from 50 per cent school fee assistance through the Cost Sharing programme.
President Stanley Skeene, who is also principal of the May Day High School in Manchester, said the deficit at many of the reclassified high schools was further compounded, as the Ministry had failed to pay over to the institutions the other half of the subsidy representing the increase over last year's fees.
Contacted last night, State Minister of Education, Senator Noel Monteith was unable to say when the outstanding funds would be disbursed. "I don't know that we can give an exact date as things are right now. It all depends on how the Ministry of Finance will be able to release the funds," he said. Senator Monteith said, however, that if the schools had a particular financial problem they should inform the Ministry. "It is no secret, we are in serious times, we are facing serious times financially," he said.
He was unable to state the total amount of money that was outstanding to the institutions.
