The Ministry of General Education has directed all public schools to refer the newly revised user fees as schools reopen on Monday May 13, 2019.
General Education Minister David Mabumba says he expects all public schools to abide by the revised fees as announced by government.
Speaking during a press briefing held at the Ministry’s headquarters in Lusaka yesterday, Mr Mabumba reiterated that pupils in boarding schools will be required to pay K1,000 as boarding fees with an additional k150 to K200, as user fees depending on the category or status of the school.
He clarified that for boarding schools defined as being in remote areas, pupils will be required to pay K150 as user fees while boarding schools categorised to be in urban areas, pupils will pay K200 as user fees per term.
While pupils schooling in remote day schools will pay K150 as user fees.
The Minister further explained that the Ministry of General Education has given authority to provinces, to determine whether a school is in the urban or remote area.
Mr Mabumba said provinces will determine the category of the schools in liaison with the District Education Board (DEBS) office.
For primary schools, the Minister stated that no user fees will be required to be paid by parents.
Meanwhile government has also revised fees for public colleges of education.
Mr Mabumba announced that the new fees will be implemented in the second term.
He revealed that students in boarding school will be required to pay K1000 per term as boarding fee.
While day schools will be required to pay K800 as general purpose fund.
I am curious to know how these schools will be able to meet their running costs. Government is already failing to finance the education sector, so who will finance these schools that have had their feet cut from under them?
@journeyman, i wonder if you will ever reach your destination with that kind of hakaindish mentality where you oppose almost every thing. i don’t think you are aware that some secondary schools in Cowthern Province make more than K3 million tax free and above that pupils are asked to report to school with two rims of paper, a slasher, floor polish, soap etc. what you should not forget is that Teachers are paid by the government. the running cost will remain the same, the only difference will be that the Head Teacher will revert back to his old Toyota Corora and pack his favorite BMW X5 because of the cost of fuel.
JourneyMan surely which running costs are you talking about? check some of the audit queries connected to the Ministry of General Education, you will be shocked to see that many of those emirates from secondary schools and how the latter expend their resources they “grab” from pupils in the name of user fees. The core duty of MOGE is to teach and in fact these user fees needed to be regulated from the outset and the fact that the regulation is coming to the fold now is even long over due. It requires people on the ground to know that these secondary school user fees needed to be regulated and not just arm chair critics.
St Marys Lusaka falls where …..coz nayo…..awe sure…