Decision to withhold indicative fees for private schools hailed

KATARE MBASHIRU

Minister for Education, Science, Technology and Vocational Training, Professor Joyce Ndalichako

THE Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of King Solomon’s Education Services (KSES), Mr Benjamin Nkonya, has hailed the Minister for Education, Science, Technology and Vocational Training, Professor Joyce Ndalichako, for her decision to refrain from enforcing indicative fees for private schools until consensus between the government and school owners is met.

Addressing a news conference in Dar es Salaam yesterday, Mr Nkonya, who doubles as Secretary General of the Tanzania Association of Managers and Owners of Non-Government Schools and Colleges (TAMONGSCO), said the stakeholders in the education sector supported the minister’s decision to halt indicative fees until enough research was done.

“We support her for the government’s decision to call for collaboration with the ministry so that the fee structure should be decided in a way that will also allow children from low income families to acquire education,’’ he said. Winding up the budget estimates for the 2016/2017 fiscal year in Dodoma last week, Prof Ndalichako said the government had revealed many challenges during its meeting with private school owners last month.

According to Mr Nkonya, private schools ought to hike school fees due to inflation adjustment, depreciation of shilling against the dollar, increase of expenses at schools after mutual agreement with parents and unpredicted taxation regime.

“Unlike in the previous years, private schools’ owners are currently forced to dig deeper into their pockets to pay 15 different forms of tax,’’ he observed. Now, private schools are supposed to pay various taxes which are land rent, property tax, business licence, signboard levy, city services levy, skills and development levy, workers compensation fund and work/ residency permit fee.

Others are fire and rescue brigade, Occupational Safety and Health Authority (OSHA), Surface and Marine Transport Regulatory Authority (SUMATRA), Education Quality Assurance (EQA) examination for Form Two and examinations for Form Four. In total, each school owner pays up to 85m/- each year.

Mr Nkonya further advised the government to revive the multiple text-book policy from the current single text book policy, which he said was limiting students and causing education cloning, which forces students to limit themselves to a single text book system.

The KSES CEO also advised the ministry to establish the Tanzania Education and Training Regulatory Authority (TETRA), which shall include all stakeholders, policy makers, lawyers, senior officers from the curriculum design and development, curriculum quality assurance and curriculum evaluation