Paynesville – FrontPageAfrica has uncovered several acts of ongoing financial malpractice by the administration of the Paynesville Community Elementary and Junior High School (PCS) located in Joe-Bar Community, Paynesville. The inappropriate act is being carried out by the principal of the school, Ms. Thelma Mehn.
Report by Willie N. Tokpah, [email protected]
Principal Mehn has hiked the school’s academic year, 2019/2020, registration fees. This runs contrary to the Ministry of Education’s (MOE) stipulated fees for public schools in the country and this has raised concerns amongst some self-supported students and struggling parents.
According to the MOE’s guidelines, all public schools, including PCS and others under its direct supervision, are to charge L$1,000 (US$4.75) for lower-based education (grades 1 to 6), L$2,000 for upper-based education (grades 7 to 9) and L$3,000 for secondary education (grades 10 to 12).
But in apparent disregard to the MOE’s laid down tuition policy, PCS’ administration has hiked the registration fees in violation of the Ministry’s 2019/2020 tuition guideline, which students and parents are complaining about.
Madam Mehn’s stewardship is tasking L$1,950 from grades one to six and L$2,950 for grades seven to nine, excluding L$100 each for admission form to both old and new students.
The school has instructed parents and students to do their registration in two separate formats, by paying the L$2,000 stipulated by the MOE to Lone Star Cell Mobile Money while the additional L$950 to the business office.
More besides, the business office is issuing receipt to parents and self-supported students without indicating the amount paid.
The school has approximately 3,000 students, according to one staff of the school, who preferred anonymity.
This staff said, “An increase of extra L$950 means that Mrs. Mehn will be amassing over L$2 million a year from the shady deal. Additionally, students for academic school year 2018/2019 were tasked L$700 for summer school classes, but no classes were conducted; the students who had summer school problems were just allowed to go through.
One parent, who spoke to FrontPageAfrica over the weekend, George Menleh, said most of the students, who are attending the school, are from underprivileged background.
“An increase of even L$50 on fees will create difficulty for some of us who have up to five children in this school and we are not even able to pay the fees government has announced this year, because last year, we were not paying high fees like this,” Mr. Menleh said.
Menleh is also upset about payment made for computer program and other services in the academic year 2018/2019 for his kids and the children did not benefit from said services.
“This is what happened last academic year 2018/2019; we paid L$250 each for PE t-shirt and L$150 for ID card but my children did not receive those items. I paid L$300 for computer fees and my two children did not do practical computer,” Menleh added.
Two students, Patience Kollie and Korto Brown in the 9th grade, said they are self-supported and only the MOE’s stipulated fee they have budgeted. As a result, they are complaining that time might catch-up with them. They complained that before they will be able to meet Ms. Mehn’s demand, they will have to engage into business for some times before getting the additional fees.
Patience and Korto in separate statements said paying fees last academic was difficult and that additional fee this academic year will be a “burden.”
FPA has also gathered that PCS administration is charging each elementary student L$700 and junior high student L$1,000 each for activity fees.
In the same way, our inquiry has established that the school is still collecting the amount of L$300 per students for computer classes for academic 2019/2020 school year.
The situation at PCS, according our anonymous source, has been ongoing since Madam Mehn became principal, four years ago.
Commenting further, our source hinted that for the last academic school years 2017/2018 and 2018/2019, the Parents and Teachers Association (PTA) of PCS collected L$200 from each student as project implementation fees and there wasn’t a single project implemented.
When contacted, the PCS Elementary and Junior High Principal, Ms. Thelma Mehn, admitted to the shady deeds, saying her institution was not the only public school found in such act.
She defended that the hike in fees at the PCS is no secret and that she cannot do anything without her bosses and parents being in the know.
“Our information sheet is all over and the Ministry of Education is aware. There is nothing I can do without the approval of my bosses, parents, the Principal Association of Montserrado and the DEO Office. They all have copy of my information sheet. If it was against the children, parents will be all over this place,” Mrs. Mehn said.
According to her, the additional fees were intended to help address some internal problems at the school.
“You know how the country is hard, so to get that building the way it looks in order to bring students back to the school, is it rock that will do it? If it is anything different I am doing, they’ve finished punishing me by now,” she defended.
Madam Mehn also admitted to two separate payments of fees at the institution, and also confirmed that receipt that had been issued had no indicated amounts.
She explained: “The Ministry told the children to pay their registration fees and activity fees to Lonestar Cell Mobile account and they are paying their medical bill, batch, PE T-Shirt, computer and other fees to the business Office here.”
On the concern of issuing receipt without an amount indicated on it, the PCS-Joe Bar Principal placed the blame on the registrar for “doing her own thing.”
“The registrar has been doing her own thing with that receipt and that is not how we’ve being doing it; I have instructed her to put the amount on the receipt,” she stated.
Speaking further on a “non-functional computer lab,” she said only the 9th graders are to do computers in the school, but said 2018/2019 school year was a challenge to the program due to lack of electricity.
“Last year, only the theoretical aspect we were offering because there was no electricity, now that we have electricity, the problem has been resolved.”
Meanwhile, she stated that all the pieces of information that this newspaper got about her was a witch hunt and they were provided to us by some instructors at the school, whom she said are bent on undermining her administration.