Carisa Lee

Re­porter

carisa.lee@cnc3.co.tt

Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly is ad­vis­ing par­ents to pur­chase the es­sen­tial items their chil­dren may need as they en­rol in sec­ondary school. How­ev­er, she urged them against pay­ing any reg­is­tra­tion fee.

“We have asked prin­ci­pals, and that was cir­cu­larised in the last aca­d­e­m­ic year, that there should be no fees to be paid by stu­dents at the reg­is­tra­tion of stu­dents in Form One,” the min­is­ter said.

Speak­ing out­side Par­lia­ment in Port-of-Spain, Gads­by-Dol­ly said there are var­i­ous items that par­ents may have to pur­chase from the school for their chil­dren, such as their Phys­i­cal Ed­u­ca­tion uni­forms, but they should not pay to reg­is­ter.

The is­sue of reg­is­tra­tion fees and the amount of mon­ey re­quest­ed by schools has been a touchy top­ic for the last few years.

How­ev­er, gen­er­al sec­re­tary of the Pres­by­ter­ian Sec­ondary School Board of Ed­u­ca­tion Gary Samai said yes­ter­day that the pay­ments are for uni­forms and re­port books in sec­ondary schools.

“What you all term as a reg­is­tra­tion fee is not what they pay for when they go to the schools ... the school would put a pack­age to­geth­er, for ex­am­ple, your home­work book, your sound book ... It’s not a reg­is­tra­tion fee, what you do­ing is buy­ing the ma­te­ri­als you need for your life with­in the school,” he ex­plained.

The Pres­by­ter­ian board over­sees schools like Hillview Col­lege, Iere High School, Na­pari­ma Girls’ High School, Na­pari­ma Col­lege and St Au­gus­tine Girls’ High School. Samai an­tic­i­pat­ed the cost of the items to be be­tween $200 to $300.

Catholic Ed­u­ca­tion Board of Man­age­ment CEO Sharon Man­groo had a sim­i­lar view. She said a home­work note­book costs $60 and an ori­en­ta­tion book­let that spells out school rules was $80. She said such items are used by stu­dents for their en­tire sec­ondary school life.

“While all par­ents do not con­tribute, no one is forced or told that they must,” she shared.

Man­groo ex­plained that par­ents who can­not af­ford pay­ments are ad­vised to meet with the school’s prin­ci­pal and the fees are waived.

“We do eval­u­ate sit­u­a­tions and do­nate uni­forms to chil­dren who can­not af­ford ... they are al­so of­fered as­sis­tance in pur­chas­ing books, uni­forms, etc,” Man­groo added.

Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha sec­re­tary gen­er­al Vi­jay Ma­haraj al­so said their schools do not charge a reg­is­tra­tion fee. In­stead, he said there are es­sen­tial items stu­dents need in sec­ondary schools.