Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gadsy-Dol­ly says the dis­tri­b­u­tion of fund­ing for de­nom­i­na­tion­al schools will be­gin with­in the next few days.

She was re­spond­ing to com­plaints from the De­nom­i­na­tion­al Boards of Ed­u­ca­tion and Prin­ci­pals of De­nom­i­na­tion­al Schools that they were run­ning out of clean­ing ma­te­r­i­al, toi­let pa­per, sta­tionery, pho­to­copy­ing pa­per, ton­ers and oth­er sup­plies.

The Boards said there was a dis­par­i­ty in the dis­tri­b­u­tion of fund­ing.

But Min­is­ter Gads­by-Dol­ly said the dis­tri­b­u­tion is on stream.

“Every­thing is set for this week and we are work­ing with that time­line,” she said.

She ex­plained that the min­istry has been work­ing to­wards get­ting the fund­ing for the de­nom­i­na­tion­al schools.

“The schools which are re­ceiv­ing now are the gov­ern­ment pri­ma­ry schools,” she ex­plained.

In a joint state­ment from the Boards in­clud­ing Pres­by­ter­ian, Ma­ha Sab­ha, Kabir Pant and oth­ers, the Min­is­ter was urged to ex­plain the “dis­par­i­ty in the treat­ment of the na­tion’s Pri­ma­ry Schools.”

It stat­ed that prin­ci­pals and teach­ers in De­nom­i­na­tion­al Pri­ma­ry Schools are strug­gling for re­sources to pro­vide print­ed ma­te­r­i­al for stu­dents who can­not ac­cess on­line learn­ing.  

“Many schools are with­out pho­to­copiers, ton­ers, pho­to­copy­ing pa­per to meet the needs of stu­dents and the de­mand of par­ents. This is se­ri­ous­ly af­fect­ing the de­liv­ery of teach­ing and pro­vi­sion of learn­ing ma­te­r­i­al to dis­ad­van­taged stu­dents.”  

The Boards said on­ly large and small Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry Schools were re­ceiv­ing sup­plies of house­hold and hard­ware items and sta­tionery among oth­er items.  Dis­tri­b­u­tion be­gan last week.  

The Board said pre­vi­ous­ly, De­nom­i­na­tion­al Schools and large Gov­ern­ment Schools re­ceived Di­rect Fund­ing to pur­chase clean­ing ma­te­r­i­al, and sta­tionery as well as oth­er ne­ces­si­ties. 

“This sys­tem be­gan in 2013 with schools re­ceiv­ing fund­ing at the rate of $152.00 per child. In 2017, it was re­duced to $110.00 per child. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, De­nom­i­na­tion­al Schools last re­ceived this fund­ing around March 2019 for the pe­ri­od 2018 to 2019. Nu­mer­ous queries to Se­nior Of­fi­cials at the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion (MOE) have been met with deaf­en­ing si­lence. De­nom­i­na­tion­al Boards are, there­fore, call­ing on the Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion to cor­rect this in­equal­i­ty of treat­ment and cor­rect this sit­u­a­tion as a mat­ter of ur­gency,” the Boards said.