Today parents will be dropping their children back to school, after spending ‘quality time’ with them at home during the mid-term break. The schools have already told parents to ensure they have no fee balance as they drop their tots back.
Times are hard, parents have been hit hard, with dwindling fortunes imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic. They can barely make ends meet.
But as they struggle to meet their obligations faithfully, some schools have turned the poor parents into cash cows, with extra levies imposed on them. Today, teachers demand ‘motivation fees’ from parents. Some schools are charging an arm and a leg, a levy that the Education ministry is not privy to, charged according to the status of the school and the parents.
Whose role is it to motivate our teachers? The Teachers Service Commission pays the teachers and continuously reviews their salaries in line with the prevailing economic conditions, such as inflation. It is therefore the role of the employer to motivate the employees, not the clients—in this case the parents.
What is the salary they are paid meant for if not to motivate them? Why do we complain about the police asking for tips on the road when we encourage teachers to fleece poor parents using public institutions as centres of extortion? Motivation fee is an illegal levy that has no impact on the learners other than to line the pockets of the takers.
Some schools are known to demand reams of photocopy papers per term from each student, remedial fees, etc. What do the schools do with such volume of photocopy papers? Most likely the papers find themselves on the backstreets, where the dubious school heads run their bookshops and cybercafes.
The rot going on in our schools requires the intervention of the concerned minister and must be brought to an end.
