FEATURED! A UNIFORMED FEES FOR COLLEGES OF EDUCATION

A SLIP OF THE FEES

The issues of fees for colleges of education over the years had not been uniformed for all the thirty eight colleges across the country. Whiles other colleges fees range from eight hundred cedis (GHc 800) to one thousand cedis (GHc 1, 000), some are billed with one thousand five hundred cedis (GHc1, 500) and two thousand cedis (GHc2, 000) as fees for level 300. Mount Mary College of Education is one of the colleges that bills students with abnormal fees. The issue of fees cropped up just some few days to vacation.

All the thirty eight colleges did not give any bill as fees for the next academic year that is 2016/2017 academic year. We, the students of colleges of education were anticipating a uniformed fees for all the colleges. During late August, messages started coming from WhatsApp and others, displaying fees of other colleges; PCE, FOSCO, WESCO, MOMACO to mention a few. It was a shock when we, the third years of Mount Mary College of Education (MOMACO), aka Money Making College, saw the fees.

Well, a whole lot of comments were passed when the bill came out. But that is not the case, the case is that, the level 300 of every college is supposed to go out for teaching practice for one year which covers two semesters.

So, why then all this huge bill? Another issue is that, during the out program section, the student teacher pays for his/her rent, utility bills and finally feeds himself. Therefore, if the student teacher is compel to pay this bill which is GHc 1, 634.70 as fees, where again will he/she gets money to pay the money mentioned and also to feed his/herself.

As a third year student at MOMACO, I have realized that the colleges of education are not autonomous. This means that their affairs are managed and controlled by other autonomous institutions like Ghana Education Service (GES), Ministry of Education (MoE) and others. I therefore humbly appeal to the Government, MoE, GES, and Princof to reconsider the fees of colleges of education and finally come up with a uniform fees for all the thirty eight colleges in Ghana.

Assi-Kojo Ebenezer Final year at Mt. Mary College of Education