[ 2012-05-10 ]

Students thrown out of exam hall over nonpayment of fees
The future of 15 final-year students of the Kumasi
Senior High Technical School (KSTS) was put in
jeopardy last Friday when an assistant headmaster
of the school stormed the examination hall in the
school to stop them from writing the Physics
Theory paper of the West Africa Senior School
Certificate Examination (WASSCE).

The act of Mr John Kumah, the Assistant Headmaster
(Academic), who claimed he was only carrying out a
directive from the Ghana Education Service (GES)
to prevent students who owed fees from writing the
examination, has compelled educational authorities
in the Kumasi metropolis to institute immediate
investigations into the matter.

Mr Kumah entered the examination hall about 10
minutes into the one-hour paper and forced the
students out.
Not even pleas by the students, including Master
Barnabas Kwaku Aidoo, who insisted he had paid his
fees in full, would compel Mr Kumah to allow the
students entry to the examination hall to complete
the paper.

To justify his claim of payment, Master Aidoo
rushed to the Accounts office for a note to prove
that he had paid his fees, yet Mr Kumah would not
budge.

When graphic.com.gh visited the school Wednesday,
a two-man delegation from the Kumasi Metropolitan
Directorate of Education was conducting
investigations into the matter.

The officials would, however, not disclose what
their investigations had revealed so far, saying
they had to inform their boss first.

A sobbing Master Aidoo, in the company of his
guardian, Mr Kofi Asiedu, told graphic.com.gh that
they were writing the Physics Theory paper, the
penultimate paper in the WASSCE, when Mr Kumah
entered the hall and asked him and the others to
go out because they owed school fees.

“We had then spent about 10 minutes writing the
paper and I told him that I did not owe fees but
he would not agree,” Master Aidoo said.

According to him, he went to the Accounts office
for a letter indicating that he had paid his fees
in full but when he showed it to Mr Kumah, “he
insisted on preventing me from writing the
paper”.

The student said he became confused and started
crying as the time to complete the paper ticked
away.

He stated that with about five minutes to end the
paper, the assistant headmaster called him back to
the examination hall but it was too late for him.

His guardian, Mr Asiedu, showed this reporter
official receipts of the payment of the fees and
prayed that the authorities would not allow the
case to die naturally.

When contacted, the Headmistress of the school,
Mrs Mary Osei, admitted that the students had been
driven out of the examination hall in her absence
but insisted that they owed fees.

According to her, the students were later asked to
go back to write the examination.

She said although the GES had not sent any
clear-cut directive to prevent students who owed
fees from writing the examination, the Conference
of Heads of Assisted Senior High Schools (CHASS)
had insisted that every legitimate means be used
to collect fees from students.

She said last year, final-year students who wrote
the WASSCE went away with fees totaling about
GH˘7,000 and from that experience the school
administration had sworn to prevent a recurrence.

Reached for his comments, the Ashanti Regional
Director of Education, Mr Joseph Onyinah, said he
was not aware of the issue.

He, however, explained that the decision to
prevent fee-owing students from writing the
examination was a moral one.

He said school authorities had been tasked by the
GES to ensure that every student paid his or her
fees in full before the beginning of the term.

He indicated that a parent who had a problem with
payment could only negotiate with the head of the
school on the terms of payment.

Source - Daily Graphic

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