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The Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools (CHASS) says it is a huge relief that they no longer have to go through the daunting task of collecting school fees following the free SHS policy.

At its 15th annual conference held in the Volta regional capital Ho, CHASS President Mrs Cecilia Kwakye Cofie revealed, parents are not the only stakeholders excited by the policy.

"Heads of schools are the happiest because the act of collecting school fees is a daunting task," she said, earning the applause of her colleagues.

With school heads joining the government's free SHS bandwagon, the CHASS president charged that "as much as it depends on us, we owe it a duty to ensure the programme succeeds."

According to her, free SHS will bring greater and meaningful participation of our democracy because the literacy rate could shoot up.

He said the policy will strengthen national cohesion because students of diverse socioeconomic backgrounds accessing SHS on the same financial terms.

CHASS called on government to prepare a Free SHS Bible for Heads of Schools, bible that will contain a clear-cut written guidelines to ensure heads do not overstep their bounds in the implementation of the Free SHS policy.

The CHASS President also asked the government to leave to school heads, the management of 4.80p as feeding fee for students.

She said allowing school heads to manage items such as feeding fees helps deepen mutual trust between government and the school heads.

"It is important that we build confidence and trust in those we have entrusted our schools with".

CHASS also asked government to pay the subsidies for second and third terms for 2016/2017 academic year for all schools even as it has absorbed several items on the bill.

Since 2015, CHASS has been complaining that school heads have been struggling to manage their affairs because of the delay in payments of subsidies.

Some heads have been threatened with legal actions.

She also asked government to pay all the feeding grants for the Northern scholarship to ensure the reopening of schools in the Northern regions since they do not collect school fees.

Last December, food suppliers to senior high schools (SHS) in the three regions of the North threatened to cut supplies to the schools if government fails to pay monies owed them.

Mrs Kwake-Cofie said the payment of these arrears of feeding grants will give the heads of schools the peace of mind to help implement the Free SHS. CHASS also called for provision to be made for students who have the flair for vocational and Technical skills as government rolls out Free SHS.