Last night we told you about the three hundred dollar increase in annual registration fees at Saint John’s College High School. Education Minister Patrick Faber says the increase was imposed in contravention of the education rules and plainly ignored a cautionary memorandum sent to schools from the Ministry on June eighth. Today he elaborated on his position explaining why the fees should not stand.
Hon. Patrick Faber, Minister of Education
“Fees charged by grant aided schools should be approved by the Minister. I think I said to you yesterday that it was the Chief but I went to the Act to look at it in more detail and found out that it is the Minister who approves. So all the more reason why I can tell you that I certainly did not approve any increases for any school and certainly the fee increase at SJC was not sanctioned or approved by the Minister or the Ministry of Education. When I looked closely at these fees, a lot of it I could not understand myself. You have the activity fee going from $75 to $225, a supplemental fee going from $300 to $400. To start off with I am not sure what these fees are exactly for, especially in light that they are charging a library fee, a computer fee, a retreat fee – all of these other fees that you would think make up the activity fee or the supplemental fee so I can’t understand and certainly would not approve of it. But SJC should be the last school that is talking about raising the fee since they get the highest. They get one of the highest per month tuition per student in the entire country. There are schools that are getting $25 and $35 per month while SJC receives between $60 and $70 per month. So that is the last school that should be trying to raise fees.
I am an SJC boy, I went to SJC High School and Sixth Form. I spent six years of my life at that institution and I can say that there was a certain compassion in SJC so it pains me when they try to do these things that are clearly in contravention of what the government is trying to seek or clearly in contravention to the rules and to the Education Act. The compassion that I know SJC had did not turn away students who could not pay or who the government was trying to help as SJC did last year when we got into that incident. The kind of school that I know SJC to be would not out rightly defy the Education Act, would not out rightly defy a rule that is set.
The Ministry said there is to be no increase, in fact you saw Mr. Garbutt this morning almost laughing in the face of the Ministry to say, ‘yeah well you could say what you want Mr. Minister but the times are different and the prices and the cost of education have gone up and we will do what we need to do and if you don’t want to call it an increase then fine we will call it a donation or a contribution’ – which the Ministry won’t tolerate either. We will write to SJC to say to them that they need to send out a proper fee schedule and they will need to correct that issue very quickly, showing the figures and showing the amounts that have been, and I can’t even say that has been approved by the Ministry of Education – even last year’s figures.
But certainly we have said we’re willing to go with what was in place last year and for this new school year we will accept no increases. But certainly they will need to reissue the fee schedule and if they don’t then there are consequences that can come and I can tell you clearly that one of those consequences is that we can suspend and maybe even terminate their grant-aided status which I wouldn’t want to do. I will tell you that is not in any of our interest but we cannot have anybody feeling they can do what they want and just disregard the Education Act and the rules and disregard the instructions coming from the Ministry of Education which is clearly trying to make things better for education in this country. So I hope we don’t get to that point but they need to know that that is certainly an option that is available to the Ministry of Education.”
Well, seems Faber won’t have to go all the way there....this morning on Channel 5’s Open Your Eyes, SJC President Frank Garbutt announced that the increase in fees would be changed to a contribution – and a voluntary one.
