What About Graduation and Fees Collected?

Patrick Faber

So while the CSEC exams have been rescheduled for July, the traditional pomp and circumstance associated with graduation ceremonies are not in the pipeline at this time. Most students to now receive or pick up their completion certificates since schools have been unable to plan graduation ceremonies due to the SOE restrictions.  But what about those graduation fees that have already been collected at the start of the school year? Minister of Education, Patrick Faber says that schools should reimburse these monies because rental fees for gowns and hats and even venues will not be spent.

Patrick Faber, Minister of Education

“I am pretty sure that some people saw the tribute that CNN did and we are thinking to do something like that for the entire nation of Belize. Questions have come up about graduation fees and fees in general. Let me place on the record the ministry’s position as it relates to these pending fees for the current school year. You must pay your fees where you can. I understand that there is a serious economic crunch right now, but most of our schools don’t charge a monthly fee. They have an annual fee and in order to accommodate the students and their parents, the schools break it up—some of them break it up—into monthly instalments so that you can afford it. When your child does not go to school or has not gone to school over the period of the break for COVID-19, in some cases the teachers still have to be paid. If you are working in a grant-aided school, you know that the formula allows for about seventy percent of the grant monies to be used for paying the teacher. Where is the other thirty percent to come from if people don’t pay their fees? What we will not condone are those schools that are saying three hundred dollars for graduation. No graduation ceremony is happening, clearly; no cap and no gown is going to be rented. No place is going to be rented to hold a big shindig for graduation. In fact, more than likely you will be handed a piece of paper; you’re lucky if you even get it handed to you physically. It may be put in the mail or you get it later on at some point. That is what we believe it ought to be so there should not be these ridiculous fees. And if in fact this was collected already, as some schools do from the start of the school year in September, then those monies ought to be refunded. I understand that there might be minimal cost: the cost of printing the diploma, the cost of putting it in a nice jacket—to me that is a worthy cost still. But don’t fleece the students and their parents, especially not at this time where the finances are an issue for all our Belizean families.”