Home | News | PUBLIC TO MAKE INPUT ON FPE BEFORE TASK TEAM

PUBLIC TO MAKE INPUT ON FPE BEFORE TASK TEAM

Font size: Decrease font Enlarge font

MBABANE – Almost nine months after government’s promise to review the Free Primary Education (FPE) the public will make an input before a task team.


Government has finally set up a task team to look into issues of top-up fees in schools, Orphaned and Vulnerable Children (OVC) fund and FPE.
The task team was appointed by Ministry of Education and Training Principal Secretary Pat Muir in legal notice 105 titled the appointment of members of the task team to look into top-up fees 2014.


Government, in February 2014, issued a memorandum to all schools barring head teachers from collecting top-up fees.
The memorandum had been signed by the Under Secretary in the Ministry of Education   and Training Thomas Malangwane.
He had said all schools should stop demanding top-up fees forthwith and government would institute a review process.


The 14-member task team will be headed by the Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Education and Training Muir. The team, according to Muir, was given 28 working days to compile a report.
The team will conduct consultations and hearings in the country’s four regions, with each region having three sittings to enable members of the public to make submissions.


Muir said the team was currently setting up schedules and venues for the hearings which would be made public, unless circumstances otherwise required.
“The task team shall submit an interim report to the sub-committee of ministers after 14 working days. The final report shall be submitted within 28 working days after commencement of the assignment.


“The members of the task team shall be entitled to receive such allowances and where applicable, reimbursement of travelling expenses in accordance with the applicable finance circular in consultation with the minister responsible,” read the legal notice.
The Chairman of the Swaziland Principals Association (SWAPA), Mduduzi Bhembe, said it was a pity that the task team was set up very late in the year when schools were already preparing to meet parents to budget for the next academic year.


“Unless the team is preparing something else for next year, otherwise it is very late. We do not want a situation where head teachers will be told to disregard the budgets they would have made for 2015. Currently the schools are running on deficits because early this year they were told not to collect top-up fees which they had budgeted for and nobody has reimbursed them,” Bhembe said.


He advised head teachers to continue to conduct budget meetings for next year.
Bhembe said SWAPA members would attend the sittings to make submissions before the task team but said they did not want to be part of something that would not operate at the end of the day.

Comments (0 posted):

Post your comment comment

Please enter the code you see in the image: