Western Bahr el-Ghazal State General Education and Instruction Minister Simon Athuai Akot on Monday disclosed that the ministry had formed a committee to report on irregular charges imposed on students by schools.
The minister said the committee would inspect all the government and private schools, following widespread complaints by the parents about their children being charged more than the fees prescribed by the national ministry.
“I was at a digital conference in Juba a few days ago and when I returned last Thursday, I found a lot of noise concerning the examination fees,” said Akot.
“The directives that came to us from Juba is that the government schools should charge SSP 10,000 and the private schools SSP 20,000. Since we knew that, they would be challenges, our board members decided on an increase. The government schools should charge SSP 20,000 and private schools SSP 30,000,” he said.
He said he had met the parents who had been charged as high as SSP 195,000 by private schools, while some government ones were asking for SSP 60,000, saying such institutions were serving their own interests.
“We sat down and I issued an order forming a committee which is currently moving around both the private and government schools,” he said.
The minister threatened to close down any school violating the order because the higher charges were causing high dropout rates.
Akot said any excess amounts already collected from the students must be refunded.
The 10-member committee is headed by the State Director of Secondary Schools and includes members of the national security, who are mandated to identify the defiant institutions and order them return the illegal collections.