Editorial | Don’t preclude fees

The Gleaner supports Prime Minister Andrew Holness’ recent warning to schools not to exclude students whose parents cannot pay so-called auxiliary fees.

But the prime minister’s admonition of principals raises two significant issues, which he skirted in his speech at his party’s annual conference nine days ago.

One is the challenge posed after his reproach by Jennifer Williams, the president of the Jamaica Association of Principals and Vice-Principals (JAPVP). She told Mr Holness to increase funding to schools.

“If it is that they are saying that parents don’t need to pay – because that is what is out there, basically, that they don’t need to pay – it would mean that you, now, as the government, need to provide the school with the resources so that they can provide the students with a full education,” said Williams, the principal of The Queen’s School, an all-girls’ institution.

The second is the absence of serious debate of the Orlando Patterson Commission report on the transformation of Jamaica’s education system, and, in this case, its recommendation that poor families be exempt from paying for secondary education while richer ones should be obliged to contribute.

The money that wealthier families pay would not necessarily be spent on the schools attended by their children but applied to those that need it.

We support the proposal.

REJECTED

The Government has not outrightly rejected that recommendation. However, based on previous comments by the former education minister, Fayval Williams, and the prime minister’s latest declaration, without more, it is reasonable to assume that mandatory fees in secondary schools is not in favour with the administration.

Tuition fees were cut in Jamaica’s secondary schools in 2007, leaving substantial gaps, principals say, in operating budgets. They sought to close those gaps by imposing a host of ‘auxiliary fees’. Essentially, parents had to pay for a range of activities and services.

In 2016, Mr Holness’ administration abolished the mandatory nature of these fees, but parents were told that they could contribute to the funding of school activities.

Many stopped.

To compensate schools for the lost revenue, the Government raised the operating subsidy to schools from J$11,000 per student to J$17,000. It is now up to around J$19,000.

But according to school administrators, their budgets still fall far short of what is required. They spend much time fundraising.

Schools with better-offer alumni and richer parents find it easier to raise money. Their heftier coffers also show in better educational outcomes.

But in some cases, especially in poor communities, parents say they feel pressured to pay fees and sometimes claim that their children are excluded or believe they have to stay away for failing to do so – which is against official policy.

Notably, though, the Patterson Commission found “a strong positive relationship between funds provided by parents and the performance-based ranking of the schools”.

“The top-ranked schools received parental contributions in excess of ten times larger than those received by the bottom-ranked schools,” the report noted. “This is highly likely to be a function of the inability of lower-income parents in the bottom-ranked schools to afford the contributions made, on average, by parents in the top-ranked schools.

“This is substantiated by the previously shown fact that the bottom-ranked schools have had to spend substantially more than the top-ranked schools on socially linked areas such as remedial/social-intervention programmes, utilities, and security.”

DECLARED APPRECIATION

In his party conference speech, Mr Holness declared his appreciation for the fact that “the cost that the schools face to provide quality education can be expensive”.

“I understand that,” he said. “But I want to remind school administrators that non-payment of fees should never prevent a child from accessing education.”

While this newspaper unreservedly endorses that position, we understand, too, that delivering quality education and providing students with a full, vibrant, and well-rounded learning experience also requires money.

There are, fundamentally, three ways to cover the additional expenditure: the Government pays, parents pay, or a combination of the two.

Like the Patterson Commission, we appreciate the Government’s lack of fiscal space, therefore, its ability to adequately fund school budgets. We also know that poor households pay proportionally more of their incomes than richer ones on their children’s education.

In the circumstances, we endorse the following observations and recommendations by the Patterson Commission: “... This report holds that even if these principles (not excluding students for not paying fees) are strictly adhered to, the GOJ may consider constructive policy options that (a) allow for greater enforcement of auxiliary fees by households that can pay, and (b) provide increased targeted support to schools to substitute for amounts that would otherwise be due as auxiliary fees from low-income households.

“This policy prescription is informed by the observation that additional resources will be needed if the bottom-ranked secondary schools are to be put in a position where they can adopt the best practices of the top-ranked schools (by, inter alia, incentivising teaching through enhanced salaries and/or benefits to staff and increased provision of teaching equipment and teaching supplies), while at the same time maintaining the relatively high but necessary expenditures on security and remedial and intervention programmes.”