SCHOOL TRIPS FOR PUPILS IN LIMBO

MBABANE – SWAPA has hinted that school trips next month may be cancelled as head teachers may have also re-channelled fees meant for trips to run their schools.

Mduduzi Bhembe, President of the Swaziland Principals Association (SWAPA), said he foresees trouble in many schools because pupils and parents will be an unhappy lot come August, the season for school trips within and outside the country.

Normally, parents pay for the trips early in the year, with the external trips not coming cheap.
 “The simple truth is that it’s been difficult to cope without top-up fees this year.
Head teachers used available money in the school accounts to make sure that operations did not collapse. The little resources were stretched to accommodate school fees of Orphaned and Vulnerable Children (OVCs),” said Bhembe yesterday.

“So yes, there could be trips that won’t take place, sadly. We feel for head teachers.”
Head teachers have been in the spotlight lately for re-channelling funds meant for external exam fees to cater for school running expenses. Consequently, many pupils are in danger of not writing their exams this year.
The rationale behind utilising any available money in the school coffers was that head teachers would not have watched operations ground to a halt.
Administration and support staff expenses needed to be paid for.

The primary causes of many public schools’ inability to cope financially included the abolishment of the top-up fee charge and also late payment by government into the OVC Fund.
Bhembe stated that apart from school trips, stalled projects and other endeavours requiring finance will surely raise ire among the pupils’ parents.
Asked why fees paid were not kept in separate accounts, he responded that government schools were entitled to one account in which all deposits are made.

“Whatever money is received by the school it is pooled together. Government has been very late with payments, but we are hoping that something will have come in by August 15, before the end of the second-term. If you notice, participation in national schools’ activities this year, such as sports and culture has gone down,” said Bhembe.
The president warned government that payments into the OVC Fund needed to be delayed no more because the repercussions would be dire. 
He said there needed to be a substitute to top-up fees.

Meanwhile, Maphalaleni Member of Parliament (MP) Mabulala Maseko, who raised the issue of re-channelled fees in Parliament last week, said the foreseen trouble remained a reality as long as government delayed payments.
“Removing top-up fees has left a vacuum,” Maseko said.
Nonetheless, Deputy Prime Minister (DPM) Paul Dlamini is expected to return to Parliament with answers on the issue of payment. He was given seven days to do this.
 

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