Following growing hardships in the country amidst the coronavirus pandemic, a former student activist and an alumnus of the University of Education, Winneba (UEW), Oscar Komla Bedzra has proposed to the government to reduce school fees by fifty percent so as to ameliorate the impact of the pandemic on parents.
He said this in an interview with a Ho-based Kingdom FM on Tuesday. He is of the view that the suggestion if implemented will go a long way to help parents whose economic activities were greatly affected by the outbreak of the pandemic to enable them pay the school fees of their ward(s).
“.…..and it will be in the right direction if government will make a move to reduce school fees by fifty percent or even lesser. They can do that using the 2018/2019 academic year as the benchmark because we are in critical and globally worse economic times.” he stated.
He said under normal circumstances funds should have been committed to the Free SHS policy, but since school have been closed down for a while now, it would be prudent for students in public tertiary institutions are made to pay only fifty percent of their school fees.
“The Ministry of Education should consider this, call for details of bills of the previous academic year and determine the amounts to be paid because some students work to pay their own school fees,” he stated adding that it will go a long way to reduce family pressure even after the pandemic.
In a related development Oscar Komla Bedzra has urged the Ministry of Education not to reopen schools because it may lead to a deadly resurgence of the virus in Ghana, just as in the case of France.