EDUCATION secretary Dr Uke Kombra has confirmed yesterday that the department has received government tuition fee funds and has already executed the transfers to the school accounts.
“We have about K160 million which are the residue funds and some funds we received towards the end of last year and have already been remitted to schools,” Kombra said.
He said Kina Bank School accounts were the first ones for the funds being remitted as of Tuesday while the other banks will be remitted within this week.
“We have since received another K110 million also from Treasury Department, and that’s been put into our trust accounts.
“We are in the process of transferring that to pay the balance of term one and so the requirement of funds that we need for term one has all been received which are residual funds and first instalment of our warrant,” he said.
Kombra said that schools should be well catered for so no school should say that funds had not arrived.
Kombra issued the warning again to the schools not to collect any fees from parents and guardians as the Government’s Free Education Policy still stands.
“Tuition fees are paid by the government to operate the schools and deliver the curriculum and other boarding costs like infrastructure because there’s a project component in it,” he said.
He said a clear circular will be put out soon to explain and clarify what funds should be collected and what should not to be collected by schools.
“But there are also some costs that parents have to meet, for example, ID cards, uniforms, food for the child to go to school, these are the costs that the parents have to meet as their responsibility,” Kombra said.