Covid-19: Private schools struggling to maintain staff in The Gambia
Banjul Gambia (PANA) - Private schools across The Gambia are now facing a difficult task keeping and maintaining their staff amid the coronavirus pandemic, especially with the triple declaration of state of public emergency.
Their proprietors are now finding it very difficult to pay the salaries of both their academic and non-academic staff since the country was hit by the coronavirus, leading to the closure of all schools for nearly three months.
In an interview with PANA here Thursday, Mohamed Mansaray, vice-principal of Archdeacon George Senior Secondary School, said his school was finding it hard to pay staff due to some financial constraints.
“During the previous months, we paid full salary to our staff but in May we deducted some allowances from their salary due to financial constraints,” he said.
According to Mansaray, schools closed around mid-March so they were not able to collect school fees from students and this had affected them and made it very hard for them to pay their staff.
“Paying salary of staffs, both teachers and other workers in the school, every month when we are not receiving fees from the students is really challenging for us,” he lamented.
“Private schools depend on fees from the students in order to pay their staff. So if the situation should continue like this, at the end the board might not be able to pay the staff,” he noted
He appealed to government to come on board and help in terms of finance and consider the payment of tax paid by each member of staff.
He pointed out that students were also finding it hard to cope and study normally online because the situation was unusual.
He added that they also found it hard to have access to data, as having them online was really challenging.
His prayer, like others in private schools, was that the state of public emergency would not be extended again “because it is already having impact on WASCE”.
However, Momodou Colley, head of High School Sebec International, expressed the hope that education and health were not profit making ventures.
“I think if there was no submission coming forward, this is a time for government to come on board to help private schools. It is really a challenging period because some parents will say they don’t have their full salary so they can’t pay and we cannot also sit and say hence school fees are not paid, we will not teach.”
Meanwhile, Colley has called on The Gambia government to step in and give some subvention to help them in terms of tax.
He said he was not asking that it should be ignored but that they should work it out and see how they could help with regard to the payment of tax.
“Fortunately for us, we have very cooperative parents; I won’t say they are not paying. And we also consider the fact that students are not coming to school so we eliminate all the other fees and tell them to pay only tuition.
“Though it is not even enough to pay salary, we are trying to manage, thinking that help will come from somewhere,” he stated.
According to him, his school has not stopped teaching students because they are exploring several possibilities and online classes.
“The mechanism and platform are there but how to get the students to be responsive is a challenge,” he affirmed.
Ismaila Rasaq, a staff at Gambia Methodist Academy, said the board was paying them their full salary despite the fact that students had not paid their third term fees.
“My school has not been collecting fees from any student but the board is paying us. These, I think, are taken from somewhere to meet the obligation but very sure they will refund at due time when school resumes. And students need to pay their third term school fees because we are conducting online classes with them,” he disclosed.
He urged the government not to extend the state of public emergency again but instead discuss the issue with the ministry of Education to see how they could re-open the schools.
-0- PANA MSS/RA 4Jun2020
