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The Ghana Education Service (GES) says it is making frantic efforts to get the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning to release subventions for special schools. It said steps and efforts to get the money had reached advanced stages, adding that the service was very much aware of the situation the schools were in. �I know the Ministry of Finance is working on it and it that it has reached an advanced stage. We are, indeed, in touch with the ministry,� a Deputy Director-General of the GES, Mr Stephen Adu, told the Daily Graphic yesterday. He said the situation did not pertain only to the special schools but also some institutions under the GES and that the necessary steps had been taken to address the problems of schools not receiving their subventions and other funds due them. �The schools should be patient as we work to get the money released to them,� he said. The authorities of the 34 special schools in the country on Tuesday announced that they would not reopen their schools for the last term of the 2012/2013 academic year until they received their subventions from the government. Consequently, students who were expected to report in their various schools on Tuesday after vacation had been asked to stay at home until the situation was normalised. The subventions manifest in feeding, as well as goods and services grants. The Headmistress of the Garden City Special School for the Intellectually Disabled in Kumasi, Dr Rosalind Frimpomaa-Adjepong, told the Daily Graphic that the decision was taken at the mid-year conference of the schools held in Kumasi last week. �We have conveyed the decision to the parents and wards of our students and they have complied accordingly,� she said. In Ghana, students of special schools are exempted from paying any form of fees, with the government bearing all the cost covering their education. Dr Frimpomaa-Adjepong said the special schools, which include schools for the visually impaired, the hearing impaired and the intellectually disabled, had run out of funds for their day-to-day operations. They were also heavily indebted to their creditors because of the delay in releasing grants. Dr Frimpomaa-Adjepong stated that since May 2012 goods and services grants had not been paid. Besides, feeding grants covering only four months were released for the last two terms, which even delayed. While in the first term of the current academic year the feeding grant was released in the 11th week of the 15-week term, the second term grant arrived in the eighth week. While the feeding grant was pegged at GH�2.20 per student for three meals a day, the goods and services grant was calculated depending on the number of students in a school and the location of the school. �If you consider the fact that we use the goods and services grant to cover utility bills, fuel, maintenance, stationery, administrative cost, among others, you can imagine the problems we have been going through,� she said. The GH�2.20 feeding grant per student is the same as the grant senior high schools (SHSs) receive from the government. However, the advantage the SHSs have over the special schools is that the former charge their students school fees. �If we are not asking for increase in the grants, it is surprising that the little we are to receive is not coming,� Dr Frimpomaa-Adjepong said. She said the schools were operating in an inflationary environment which had led to increases in the cost of goods and services, �yet we remain where we are�.