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By Carlalee Gowie
Staff Reporter
The decision of the government to abolish tuition fees for all students attending high schools has left no impression on the attendance rate of students. Sunday Herald checks with principals across the island revealed that the pattern of attendance was the same as last year.
Before the abolition of the fees, the Ministry of Education had notified that no child should be turned away from school because of failure to pay their tuition fees, but some schools had ignored this notification and students were in fact being turned away for not paying the fees. Several parents had therefore complained that their children were unable to attend school because of their failure to pay the fees which ranged from anywhere between $5,000 and $10,000.
But now that the tuition fees are no longer the responsibility of the parents, attendance rates have remained the same, which would discount the argument previously used by many parents.
Principal of St. James High School, Joseph Williams, said it was never the practice at the school to turn students away for the want of school fees, but some students were just not interested in attending school.
“I don’t see it as a school fee problem,” he said, “they are just not interested in coming school”. Williams said many children of poor economic backgrounds who have been placed at the traditional high schools, are rarely absent from school because of financial issues, so the argument put up by some parents was debatable.
He said since the start of the new school year there had been no change in the attendance rate at St. James High, in comparison to the attendance rate last year. He said a minority of five per cent of the students still failed to turn up at school on a consistent basis.
“Sometimes students do not come back for weeks. Some might have started two weeks ago and you don’t see them again until exam time,” he said.
Williams said though it was a policy at the school that if a child misses school for a month, he/she has to be re-admitted to school by the principal, teachers there, out of concern for the educational welfare of the students, hardly report the absence and so the children are usually given a second chance.
He said in order to tackle the problem, the educational authorities needed to go a step further than just abolishing fees.
“They need to appoint some truancy officers to go and find them or they need a law to ensure that students of school age are in school and not at home or on the street,” he said. Williams said in the case of St. James High, some of the students reached Montego Bay but opted to loiter at the game shops. Principals at the traditional schools contended that they never turned students away from school because of fees, so there had also been no change in attendance
“For us, nobody stops attending school because of school fee. Usually we ask them to make some arrangements with the bursar and even so, some still find themselves in arrears,” said Esther Tyson, principal at Ardenne High school.
The argument was the same at Alpha Academy, where the principal, McRan Singh, said they had never had a problem with attendance.
“Even before the results of the elections were known, we had over 75 per cent of our parents paying the fees,” he said.
In the meantime, the principals said things have been progressing smoothly with the collection of auxiliary fees, which were the responsibility of the parents. The Alpha principal said about 70 per cent of the students at the school have already paid these fees.
“Some have paid portions of it. Some parents pay according to their means,” he said.
Tyson said over 75 per cent of her students have already paid the fees, but Williams has not had such a high success rate. He said just about 50 per cent of students at the school have paid the fees which totals $1,600 per student.
Several principals had previously complained that they were experiencing difficulties collecting the fees, partly because some parents were under the impression that it was included in the school fee, and therefore would be paid by the government.
The auxiliary fees were optional but some schools have devised strategies aimed at forcing parents to pay, as the fees were said to be critical to offsetting school operational expenses.
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