Over 180 private schools close down

Over 180 private secondary schools have stopped operating in the past two years due to what owners said were high operational costs.

 

Tanzania Association of Managers and Owners of Non-Government Schools and Colleges (Tamongsco) in an interview with The Guardian over the weekend said the costs were due to the multiple taxes they were required to pay.

 

Tamongsco members called on the government to remove some of the taxes imposed in education to enable them run the schools or else people will return to the old days where they will be required to send their children to study outside the country.

 

Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training, Prof Sifuni Mchome acknowledged it was aware of and was working on the concerns of the private school owners.

 

The taxes which the private school owners are charged include property tax, city levy, land rent, and skills development levy, occupational safety and health administration, and fire which they said are too many for them to manage, affecting the schools economically.

Speaking to The Guardian over the weekend, Jerry Nyabululu Tamongsco member from Shinyanga claimed that private school owners in Lake Zone plan to give their stand in April this year   concerning the multiple levies imposed on them.

 

“We are not going to strike. We will find  a proper way of ensuring that our message reaches the government… private school owners have written a letter to the government since 2007 requesting it to stop imposing multiple taxes in education but is has never responded,” Nyabululu said.

 

According to him, private schools in Kilimanjaro region have vowed to file a case in court against the government to oppose some taxes in education including skills development levy.

Nyabululu said the Vocational Education and Training Act of 1994 revised in 2004 required school owners to pay 5 percent of the salary of each employee, as skills levy, saying that a school can pay up to over 40m/- per year.

 

Dr Martha Mvungi the owner of the Eastern and Southern Africa Center for Support in Education (ESCSE) who suspended operations of her school said that the imposition of multiple taxes will force the schools to turn into businesses while it is not allowed by law.

 

She added that many schools are facing shortage of students because parents have failed to pay the higher fees due to increased taxation.

 

“If the government fails to support private schools with grants, many of them will be close down, because the operational costs are high,” she said.

 

She further claimed that the work permit fee is very high, forcing school owners to pay for their workers. The situation is different in neighbouring countries such as Kenya and Uganda where foreign workers don’t pay for work permits.

 

They said that before 1992, when private individuals were not allowed to own schools, many Tanzanians sent their children to Kenyan and Ugandan schools, but when individuals were allowed to own schools the number of parents sending children abroad came down sharply and more Tanzanians got employment.

 

Prof Mchome said the government is working on the concerns raised by private school owners through education lab which comprised different stakeholders.

 

Through the lab the government will be able to address some of the issues which have been raised by the private school owners including multiple taxes, he said. 

 

He said that the government is aware of all the levies and has promised to work on the complaints so as to provide an environment that conducive for education investment in the country.

 

Prof Mchome called on all private school owners to be patient as his ministry takes all necessary measures to ensure that the levies which are imposed to them do not affect their operations.