Some private schools shouldn’t be operational – GTU General Secretary

Mar 09, 2017 News

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Many private schools lack the infrastructural measures to even be called a school, and therefore should have never been allowed to even open their doors to the public in the first place. This assertion was made by teacher for more than two decades within the public education system, Ms. Coretta McDonald.
Her remarks were forthcoming as she weighed in on the matter of the newly instituted Value Added Tax (VAT) on tuition fees paid to private schools. McDonald was at the time speaking in her capacity as General Secretary of the Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU).
In her argument, she underscored that a number of these facilities have many issues, ranging from infrastructural to student intake, that should have long ruled out the possibility of them being allowed to function.
“Too many of these private schools that are popping up every day do not fill the criteria for being a school and yet we still have them,” said the GTU General Secretary. She qualified her disclosure by pointing out that “several of these schools don’t have the kind of sanitary facilities required. They don’t have enough space in terms of classroom sizes…some of them don’t have enough children attending for them to be considered a school.”
Against this background, McDonald said that the Ministry of Education should have long been putting enforcement measures in place to ensure that the operation of some existing private schools were halted from the start.
“All of these private institutions, in order for them to be recognised, should have been functioning as a school; that is, they should have been paying their taxes,” said McDonald.
She pointed out that while the implementation or revision of policies to guide the operation of private schools must be given close attention at this juncture, “many of these institutions operate on the notion that if they can’t close that one down then they can’t close mine.”
And the foregoing notion, McDonald noted, is based on the purported view that several owners of private schools have “connections.”
“There are some people who have their friends in high places and instructions are passed down to allow some of them to continue to function even if irregularities have been found,” McDonald speculated, as she added, “we have to start displaying a high level of professionalism because what we have found happening is that somebody has a friend here and there, and if officers of the Ministry turn up, somebody at these schools… someone picks up a phone and you hear ‘stand down’ and that the requirements will be in place… but months pass and nothing happens.”
McDonald pointed out that while it is a shortcoming of the Ministry of Education to allow these facilities to even be in operation, “I can say to you I am in sympathy with the officers of the Ministry, because [as far as I am aware] the Ministry doesn’t have sufficient officers to man the public schools, more so to venture out to man what is happening in the private schools.”
As such, the GTU President asserted that the ideal option that should be embraced by the Ministry is to revise any necessary documents governing the operation of private schools so that it will have the authority to immediately shut down any school that is found to be in violation.
Continuing with her argument of the imposition of VAT on tuition fees, McDonald said that she is convinced that “if they [private institutions] were paying their taxes, they would have had a higher ground to defend their case in the sense of VAT being charged on tuition fees, but since they are not paying their taxes, it makes their argument very weak and difficult.”
As of 2016, there were 54 private education institutions registered with the Guyana Revenue Authority, and according to Minister of Finance, Winston Jordan, few of these “were tax compliant, including submission of yearly income and corporate tax returns.”
Although there has been public outcry over the decision to introduce the VAT on tuition fees, there is speculation that Government could be willing to waive the 14 percent VAT if the private schools decide to comply with taxation laws.
McDonald shared her belief that the private schools that are purportedly used to having ‘their way’, “will not take on the burden of VAT nor would they want to lose in any way…so whatever happens they are going to pass it on to the parents.”
As such she is convinced that instead of now seeking to safeguard themselves from and evading their legal obligations, the operators of private schools should focus on “paying up their taxes and ensuring that they are registered, because we have a lot of private schools operating that are not registered and are not recognised by the Ministry of Education.”
“They should ensure that they meet the requirements to be registered as private schools…it is unfair for you to be operating and not paying your taxes…but once they do the right thing they should be in a better position to argue their  case whether VAT should or should not be added,” McDonald added.
Government in an advisory had disclosed plans to meet with the operators of private schools, and this could possibly determine the way forward.

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