Peeping Tom does not understand…

Apr 13, 2018 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
Peeping Tom yesterday commented on the issue of the fee hike at Mae’s School. Peeping Tom is of the opinion that the Ministry of Education “has no right to intervene in a private dispute between a private school and the parents of the students of that school”. Peeping Tom further states that unless the dispute affects all private schools, it is not a public dispute (when, presumably, the Ministry can intervene). Peeping Tom sees this as a market matter, and the market should determine the fees.
Editor, a short while ago the GRA proposed imposing V.A.T. on private schools. At the time, there was a public outcry to the effect that education was a public good, and that the tax would be passed on to parents to their detriment. I am not sure about the rate of V.A.T. that was proposed, but I am sure that it was not as high as 40%.
I agreed at the time that such a tax should not be imposed on the provision of education. My view was that education was a necessity from which as a country we all benefit. Given our limited resources, our public schools are unable to provide adequately for all of our children, children who are the future of this country.
Therefore, in my opinion, private schools are remedying a very real deficiency, in that they provide education for at least some of our children, whose parents have the means to pay for that education. If the private schools were to be priced out of the reach of parents, the pressure on the public schools would, in our current economic situation, be unsupportable. That, again in my opinion, makes it a public good, not a market commodity to be left to the vagaries of market forces. Education whether “private” or “public” is not a commodity to be bought and sold. It is the training and development of future citizens of the country.
The Ministry of Education, like all government ministries, has a public responsibility to work for and to seek to improve a specific sector, (in this case, the education sector), of the general development of this country. Private schools are a part, a necessary part, of the education system. They should, in fact be supervised by the Ministry of Education. All schools, whether public or private, should be inspected regularly by that Ministry. Owners of private schools should also be submitting income tax returns for the schools, (which I understand many are not doing; that failure was the reported justification for the proposed imposition of V.A.T.), unless they can show that, these schools are non-profit institutions, which I doubt that they are. And their accounts should be audited to ensure that there are no hidden profits – such as, for example, educational materials being bought at higher than general prices, from a bookseller company that is owned by the owner of the school.
Even if there is no profit after teachers’ stipends are paid, equipment and teaching materials purchased and the Principal-Owner paid, those owners should be paying taxes on their income from the school. Are they? Does the GRA have information about all of these private schools? Where would the GRA get such information from if the Ministry of Education itself does not have records of every private school in the land?
I think that yesterday’s Peeping Tom does not understand that Private schools are “private” in the sense that they are funded through the fees paid by parents rather than from public revenues. They are not “private” in the sense that what they do is of no concern to anyone but the owners and the parents. The service they provide is of crucial importance to the future of the country in which they operate. This means that both the government of the country, through the Ministry of Education, and ALL citizens, should be very concerned about the way they operate, what they teach, and what they charge the parents of the students.
Students, whether they are in private or public schools, are not just their parents’ concerns. Today’s students will determine how this country develops in the future, so they will affect all our children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. Unless we are all planning to migrate to other lands, we should care and be concerned about that.
Pat Robinson Commissiong

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