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The National Union of Ghana Students (NUGS) has expressed deep concern over the government’s delay in the release of funds for the smooth running of schools.

It made reference to complaints by the Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools (CHASS) about unpaid absorbed fees, feeding grants and government scholarships and said it found the situation disturbing.

These combined with the high utility tariffs was putting enormous financial stress on the institutions and must not continue.

This is contained in a statement issued and signed by the National President of the Union, Luqman Abubakari, a copy of which was made available to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Kumasi.

The students said they were also unhappy that statutory payments to the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) was in arrears and asked that the government moved quickly to clear all outstanding monies.

That, it indicated, was necessary to allow for not only the completion of on-going education projects being implemented by the GETFund but to add news ones.

It asked that more resources were put into the development of education - to raise the quality.

The Union further demanded a review of the 25 per cent corporate tax imposed on private education institutions, something, it said was unfair and making things difficult for the private operators.

It said its expectation was that substantial allocation would be made in the 2017 budget to comprehensively tackle challenges in the education sector.

NUGS advised that the government focused on working to address the challenges to ensure that there was accessibility to education and there was quality.

“Meddling in student politics” was not the right thing to do and should therefore be avoided, it added.