WINDHOEK – Following failed attempts to privatise the Pionierspark Primary School board members have now proposed that parents make regular fixed financial commitments to the Pionierspark Community Trust.
Yesterday was the due date for the parents to apply for membership to the trust with an application fee of N$100. The financial commitment is only for the 2014 academic year with the school board saying for the year 2013 “we will continue with voluntary contributions and hopefully we will get through this difficult year.” Parents have been given three options for the monthly financial commitment. They either pay N$300 per month, or N$950 per trimester payable upfront or alternatively pay N$2 700 per year per child, which is also payable upfront in January each year. “In short, parents you have the following options. Either believe in your constitutional right of free primary education and decide not to contribute towards the education of your child. Take your child to a private school and pay at least N$40 000 per annum. Make voluntary contributions and hope everyone is doing the same. Or commit to the trust and know upfront that more than 50 percent of parents feel the same,” the school board said in a memo to parents last week.
Early July this year, the school board came up with the idea to privatise the public school, which occasioned a public outcry, especially among parents who felt it was unfair for them to contribute to the school development fund (SDF) after government approved free primary education for all. The contentious idea forced the Education Minister Dr David Namwandi to intervene personally by visiting the school board members and instructing them to shelve their hare-brained idea to privatise the public school.
Some aggrieved parents who feel the school would be over-charging and that the contributions are too high forwarded the memo to the media alleging that it was sent to them by school board members Albe Botha and Nangula Uaandja.
The memo, which is in possession of New Era, states: “Government however has a very strong view on the concept of ‘privatisation’ and before the school board could present the idea to government for consideration, they requested the school board not to continue with their application relating to the ‘privatisation’ of Pionierspark Primary School. As school board we have accepted the decision of government and will not continue with the application. How do we as parents go forward?” the memo reads. “This cannot be the way forward on a sustainable basis and is also not fair to people the school board appoints. The school board is responsible for the finances of the school and they will set up the budget this year September again,” the school board explained to the parents in the memo.
School board members wrote to parents that “charity starts at home” and therefore proposed that the school set up their own community trust to be called the Pionierspark Community Trust whereby the only beneficiaries would be the children of the school. However, the school board makes it clear that membership to the trust is a voluntary decision that parents should make.
According to the school board, the request to commit to the trust is a voluntary request and no one is required to belong to it if they do not wish to. “Those parents who cannot afford it or those who believe in receiving free education as part of their constitutional right and therefore do not wish to belong to it are not required to engage the trust at all. We respect your decision and view. The trust will be run independently for the school and is accountable to the members of the trust. The success of the trust depends on the commitment to belong to it. We will ask parents once a year whether they wish to be part of the trust and this will be done in August,” the memo reads.