The Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools, CHASS, has threatened legal action against parents who refuse to pay their children’s school fees. The threat follows reports that some schools across the country are owed huge sums of monies by students because they did not pay their fees before finishing school. Speaking on the Joy News Thursday, President of CHASS, Samuel Ofori Adjei expressed worry at the development which he said has been compounded by the delay in the release of quarterly grants to schools by the Ghana Education Service. He said they are unable to plan for their needs due to unavailability of funds. The Daily Graphic on Wednesday reported that a number of WASSCE 2013 candidates owe their alma mater arrears in school fees running into thousands of Ghana cedis. This is as a result of a Ministry of Education (MoE) directive to heads of SHS not to drive out students who owed fees from the examination hall. Out of the 600 SHSs across the country, the Daily Graphic sighted the indebtedness owed 10 schools, totalling GH¢332,844. The school with the highest indebtedness of GH¢106,000 is located in the Central Region, while the school with the least indebtedness of GH¢9,364 is in the Greater Accra Region. According to Mr. Ofori Agyei, this has been a yearly affair but their plight has been aggravated by the fact that two streams of students - SHS form '3' and SHS form '4' - graduated from the senior high schools this year. Meanwhile, Deputy Director of the Ghana Education Service, Charles Tsegah says the schools have no authority to take any legal action. Mr. Tsegah rather believes the schools must find innovative means of retrieving their monies from the parents of these students. He said the GES is doing everything possible to ensure government advances subventions to schools.