The An­ju­man Sun­nat ul Jam­mat As­so­ci­a­tion (AS­JA) is de­fend­ing the de­ci­sion by AS­JA Boys’ Col­lege, San Fer­nan­do, to re­quest a con­tri­bu­tion of $3,000 from par­ents reg­is­ter­ing their chil­dren for aca­d­e­m­ic year 2023/2024.

This comes as Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly re­it­er­at­ed to Guardian Me­dia that all schools are pro­hib­it­ed from man­dat­ing the pay­ment of school fees.

A pho­to of the doc­u­ment show­ing AS­JA Boys’ Col­lege’s re­quest for con­tri­bu­tions was shared on­line. It not­ed that “a con­tri­bu­tion of $3,000 is re­quired”.

Ac­cord­ing to the let­ter signed by act­ing prin­ci­pal II Faied Ali, this fee will cov­er the cost of a reg­is­tra­tion pack­age to be col­lect­ed on Ju­ly 6 (PE T’shirt on ori­en­ta­tion day), se­cu­ri­ty fees, of­fice fees, full-time an­cil­lary staff salaries, part-time an­cil­lary staff salaries, ex­am­i­na­tion fees, lab fees, co-cur­ric­u­lar club fees, gen­er­al school main­te­nance and tech­nol­o­gy ed­u­ca­tion fees.

Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary of AS­JA Rahi­mool Ho­sein as­sured that the fees were vol­un­tary. How­ev­er, he said that gov­ern­ment-as­sist­ed schools are un­der­fund­ed and need sup­port.

“The mon­ey must come from some­where. It’s agreed that the Gov­ern­ment give an al­lo­ca­tion for an­cil­lary staff for re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture and what­not but as I said, it is not suf­fi­cient. The play­ing field be­tween the gov­ern­ment schools and the board schools is not lev­el,” he said.

Rahi­mool added that re­quests for an in­crease in sup­port have been made for many years.

“We have over the years (been) mak­ing this re­quest. But, you know, the min­istry. The min­istry, boy some­times yuh bounc­ing against a wall,” he said.

Nonethe­less, schools across T&T are be­ing warned against de­mand­ing reg­is­tra­tion fees un­der the guise of a re­quest for con­tri­bu­tions.

The min­is­ter said not on­ly is it vol­un­tary, but stu­dents who can­not af­ford it should not be dis­crim­i­nat­ed against. She was speak­ing in re­sponse to ques­tions sent via What­sApp.

“This in­cludes mak­ing their in­abil­i­ty to pay a pub­lic mat­ter at the lev­el of the school or class com­mu­ni­ty. No school should at­tempt, in any way, to shame a stu­dent in­to pay­ing school con­tri­bu­tions,” she said.

Pres­i­dent of the The T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion, Mar­tin Lum Kin, urged par­ents to raise their is­sues with their chil­dren’s re­spec­tive schools re­gard­ing pay­ment.

“We are say­ing to the par­ents, to have a con­ver­sa­tion with the schools in or­der to as­cer­tain or to clar­i­fy the break­down and the util­i­sa­tion of these con­tri­bu­tions,” he said.

The Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha (SDMS) al­so com­ment­ed on the dis­cus­sion. SDMS Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Vi­jay Ma­haraj said schools un­der his board re­quest fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance for nec­es­sary ex­pens­es.

“That has al­ways been in ex­is­tence. It would have been less over the years but prices have risen,” he said.

Sim­i­lar­ly, the chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of the Catholic Ed­u­ca­tion Board, Sharon Man­groo, said while funds can­not be re­quest­ed for what the MoE al­ready pays for, par­ents must pay for their chil­dren’s school ma­te­ri­als.

These fees are al­so said to be used for badges, school pins, reg­is­tra­tion fees, home­work books, se­cu­ri­ty, pho­to­copies, the Par­ent Teacher’s As­so­ci­a­tion (PTA) and more.

Guardian Me­dia was told by sev­er­al de­nom­i­na­tion­al boards that they ab­sorb the cost for stu­dents whose par­ents are not able to pay. (DP)