Conditions for School Closure
The Task Force established the degree of prevalence of the following conditions to determine the status of the private schools:
Land ownership status
Insufficient classrooms and space
Limited number of qualified teachers
Classroom spacing and arrangement
Poor infrastructure
Lack of play ground (Owned or arranged)
Poor Sanitation
Poor school Management
Salary Issue
Unsafe structures
CONCLUSION
Schools mushroomed in Region One mainly because of the following reasons:
1. There is a high demand for education and proprietors capitalized on this demand
2. Proprietors established schools in response to the huge differences in economic abilities among families in the area
· The rich can afford to pay for expensive fees in some private schools and
· The poor can only afford to pay for inexpensive fee charges in low quality schools. For these reasons some proprietors who cannot afford to start a standard school prefer to open low quality schools for the less privileged
· A review of Planning School Assessment Reports showed that schools charged a wide range of fees depending on quality of facilities and quality of service delivery
3. Some proprietors capitalize on the low starting capital cost of illegal operations of schools to later on rise to more advanced legal operations
RECOMMENDATIONS
1. To enforce the change of school names carrying “International.”
2. To reinforce the teaching and adherence to the national curriculum and examinations in schools with International status.
3. The Ministry to decentralize the school opening application process and establish joint school verification.
4. Establishment of time line for school registration process to avoid delay
5. To strength monitoring to avoid illegal school operation.
6. To have a uniform registration certificate as currently, both certificate and approval letters being used.
7. To open individual files for all registered schools at both the Ministry and REDs to avoid loss of documents.
8. To sanction schools that opera without being granted approval.
9. An annual survey of all private schools in the country to be conducted to update records.
10. Extend the process used in this exercise and the modality agreed upon to cover other regions.
NEXT EXERCISE
1. The next step in Region 1 is to notify Proprietors/Proprietresses on the status of their schools.
2. Mount sensitization programme through available media (TV, Radio, and Newspapers)
3. To extend similar exercise in Region 2
