IN THE run-up to the last general election the issue of cost-sharing for secondary education became a political football. The Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) gained political traction by calling for it to be scrapped, heralding that all education to the secondary level should be free, the People's National Party (PNP), caught off guard, felt obliged to meet the challenge and pledged to phase out cost-sharing over three years.
Now reality has set in. The cost of abandoning cost-sharing is about $2 billion and comes at a time when the government is facing an overall cash flow crisis. Because the government has said that, as a matter of policy, no child will be deprived of a secondary education because of an inability to pay fees, unscrupulous parents who can well afford to pay for their children's education are refusing to do so even though the phasing out of cost-sharing has not yet started.
All this political 'one-upmanship' is compounded by the fact that the government's mechanisms for deciding who can and who cannot genuinely afford to pay school fees is a bureaucratic nightmare. It involves two ministries, the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, which administers the PATH programme used to advise the Ministry of Education about who does and who does not qualify for assistance. The Ministry of Education is responsible to the schools for paying over to them the cash representing the fees for those who can't afford to pay.
Some of the PATH criteria for determining ability to pay are seen as disrespectful and degrading such as asking applicants whether they have flush toilets and refrigerators. Each Ministry is jealous in public debate to preserve their turf and budget allocations. The bottom line is that many non-traditional secondary schools are unable to cover the cost of their operation from the diminished stream of fees they are receiving and many are on the brink of closure. It is true that in many countries education is free up to the secondary level, an ideal to which Jamaica may be able to aspire in the future. What is clear is that on pragmatic grounds cost-sharing should be urgently reinstated and redesigned to function smoothly so that there will be sufficient cash for the school system to stay open. The education system needs cost-sharing.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
