By Emmanuel Mafelah, mafelahemmanuel29@gmail.com
GBARNGA, Liberia- Like in other areas, a number of private as well as some public schools in Bong County are violating the Education Ministry’s regulation on sales of uniforms by schools.
Education authorities said weeks ago that no private or public school should make it compulsory for parents to purchase uniforms being sold by the various schools, rather it should be optional.
The Education Ministry said the parents and students should only be shown the type of uniforms used so that they can buy their cloth and take them their respective tailors.
But our investigations conducted in this area finds the opposite. Manily private school administrations are demanding poor parents in Bong to purchase uniforms for their child/children before they can register to enroll at these institutions across the County, since this academic year began in September.
The investigation further revealed that these private schools some are charging parents US$12.00 for a single set of uniform from the schools.
In August this year, the Education Ministry mandated school authorities in the country to desist from imposing fees on struggling parents, amidst the current economic shambles, describing the act as an attempt to deny the young population the opportunity to acquire quality and affordable education.
Education Minister, Prof. Ansu Sonii emphasized that all schools should get the samples of their uniforms on campus for parents or students to see and buy the same cloth to fix their exact uniform instead of the school selling it on the campus.
A recent visit to many of these private schools in Bong County confirmed the complaints of parents about the manner in which these schools are imposing not only uniforms purchase on them but also high tuition and other fees.
Some parents told www.newspublictrust.com that private school administrations should not even be selling uniform to students, because they should not be in commercial business.
According to them, this action by private schools has resulted into many of their children staying out of school this academic semester, because they are also charging very hard tuitions.
They said there is a serious need for the Education Ministry to send teams of investigators into the field, in order to ascertain facts relating to these reports.