TOP-UP FEES ISSUE BELITTLES DEMOCRACY

MANZINI – Head teachers, school chairpersons and grantees have said the problem with government is that it uses the top down approach and takes decisions without consulting.

The school heads met at Divine Healing Ministries yesterday to discuss, among other things, the issue of top-up fees. This after government issued a directive that no pupil should be suspended from school for owing top-up fees and that no school should charge such fess.

In a highly emotional meeting where the school heads attended in their numbers, resulting in the church being filled beyond its carrying capacity, Ben Sibandze, who declined to state which school he was from, said the issue of top-up fees would make the country’s democracy look as if it was being belittled yet that was not the case.

Sibandze said he was a school chairperson. He said they were not equally served, much to a round of applause as he called for teamwork on the part of government.   
“What is even more painful about the issue of top-up fees is that as a teacher you have goals you want to achieve. You work as a team. However, the ministry is not working with us. You only reach schools in the towns and do not reach to us in the rural areas where there are many of these problems.

“Then you say government is decentralising. You are preaching a gospel that you do not practise,” he continued, adding that there was a possibility of having difficulties on this matter.

“You are too far and the teachers are too behind. I say this because what you are saying is different from what the teachers are saying. Then I ask myself if ever you do have consultative meetings. We were only told that we should monitor head teachers because they help themselves to school funds,” he said.

The school heads categorically stated before the Minister of Education Phineas Magagula, Principal Secretary Pat Muir and officials from the ministry that the issue of school top-up fees cannot be done away with under the current circumstances.
Others even accused the government of trying to impose the ban on top-up fees without having done the necessary research on the subject matter.
They felt as head teachers and school committees they were not consulted and that rural school committees were not educated or adequately trained on school development issues.

Clifford Maseko, a retired head teacher, said the problem is that decisions come from Hospital Hill to the Ministry of Education and to Lobamba in Parliament. “The structure of doing things needs to be fixed. Before decisions can be made, issues should first be discussed with us teachers on the ground.  From today, whether it is policy decisions or whatever, it must first be discussed with us,” said Maseko. 

He said as things stand, what was happening was that issues were being imposed when in fact they ought to have started with consultations.
St. Theresa’s School Grantee, Sithembile Kunene, wondered as to how the ministry could say there was no justification of some top-up fees. “What if the school comes up with the justification which has been approved by the parents as well as the grantee of the school? Can this be presented to the REO?” she wondered, saying as things were right now parents were demanding their monies back.
“It is so unfortunate that schools already have budgets in place which they must execute. Please can we have a directive of what the way forward is,” she pleaded.  

Big Bend High School Head teacher, Lindiwe Zwane, said as head teachers they were visionaries.
“You have to improve the school where you have been posted. You also have to ensure that the school has a committee in shape and that it has proper infrastructure and classrooms. If things are all messy, it is not good for your identity, it is not good for your CV and it is not good for your obituary,” said Zwane much to a deafening round of applause.

“There is the Teaching Services Commissions Act wherein government established a system to look into how funds in schools are managed. We have complied with that, we budgeted, compiled income and expenditures for the year and the next. “We followed every procedure to the letter in terms of even school projects. Now, enlighten us minister, what if we agreed with the parents in a properly constituted parents meeting on how to develop the school and the community,” she submitted.

Despite the submissions in the approximately five-hour meeting, no conclusion could be reached as the minister’s delegations had no answers to the head teachers’ concerns raised during the meeting. 
The head teachers submitted that they should not be held responsible for top-up fees since these were endorsed by parents.
They said they were merely secretaries during these meetings and that it was the parents who come with whatsoever resolution over school developmental issues.

Minister of Education Phineas Magagula and Principal Secretary Pat Muir, after the meeting, said they were yet to consult on the way forward.
The head teachers wanted to know as to what was the way forward on matter because they did not want be seen as being defiant. We welcome with all due respect that consultation must be there but in the meantime what then are we to do? If we can be cleared there, then we can live and stop the high blood pressure tablets that we are now taking,” said the Big Bend High School head teacher.

“About 38 points have been raised here today. We are yet to consult on a way forward as a ministry while we also conform to the dictates of the law,” said the PS, Muir.   Muir, however, did not state what these points were except to say that is what he picked up during the meeting.

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