The State Minister for Higher Education, Chrysostom Muyingo has revealed the Government has resolved to reinstate the Parent’s Teacher’s Association-PTA fees in schools. This follows a decision by cabinet in November 2021 to scrap off PTA fees.
PTA fees is money contributed by parents to support school activities like providing meals to learners, paying teachers who are not on the government payroll among others.
Dr. Chris Baryomunsi, the Minister in charge of ICT and National Guidance recently made announced the scrapping of all fees in public schools on grounds that learners were being charged different fees in a system meant to be free for all.
He noted that it had come to their attention that that Universal Primary Education-UPE and Universal Secondary Education –USE schools were charging learners different charges.
However ,in a twist of events, Muyingo says that after several consultations, they agreed to reinstate PTA fees but not as a mandatory fee for learners.
Munyingo says the government has already catered for school fees of all learners in these schools through the capitation grant.
Muyingo says the onus of feeding learners is on parents and not schools, arguing their failure to contribute towards the school feeding program shouldn’t affect the learners.
He adds that in the financial year 2021, the government increased the capitation grant to UPE schools from Shillings 11,000 to 18,000 per learner annually and Shillings 58,000 from 41,000 Shillings for O’level students per term and Shillings 90,000 from 80,000 for A’ level students.
Schools in Kampala charge between Shillings 50,000 to 80,000 as PTA for the primary level and between Shillings 100,000 to 200,000 for the secondary level. However, the fee is determined by parents through their PTA meetings.
