10 ways to get extra cash during boarding school

10 ways to get extra cash during boarding school

Ghana’s boarding school systems can be severe and most times you will be living on the financial edge. For some reason, pocket money given at the beginning of the term runs out in no time and asking for more will problematic.

You are not necessarily using the money for anything bad; just food and the occasional personal things you can’t ask your parents for directly. These ten excuses will help you solicit money from your parents.

These tips will not work if you have parents that will ask for receipts and are overly suspicious. Having a history of lying about similar things will not help either.

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These tips will not work if you have parents that will ask for receipts and are overly suspicious. Having a history of lying about similar things will not help either.

Get a friend to call your parents to tell them you are sick and need some money transferred to you for drugs that the school’s infirmary lacks. Parents will almost always jump on this because they want to make sure their little ones are safe. However, you need to be careful what you wish for.

The main reason why you have been sent to school is to learn. Occasionally, new books are introduced, and you may be required to get them to aid you in learning. Try this line: one of your teachers has written a book and it is mandatory for everyone to have it or else you will be kicked out of class. You were even thrown out the previous day because you didn’t buy the book.

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Stealing in boarding school is infamous and it will be very surprising to find someone whose money has not found a new owner. This works very well especially if you are in the first year. Parents know this, and so they will usually believe this except that they would give you the age-old ‘money doesn’t grow on trees’ talk and as such you need to look after your money well. But the money will be transferred in no time.

You have noticed that students taking extra classes on campus with one of your teachers perform very well in tests and exams. That is because he talks his time to teach and explain the topics better than he did in class and because of the small size (unlike the large class size of regular school) the tuition is a lot more personal and practical. This will work for ‘difficult’ subjects such as mathematics, physics or chemistry and not for courses such as social studies. The advice.

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Your class is organising a field trip to see at first hand what was seen in books. This would usually work for those studying geography. However, you may need to provide photo evidence when you go back home. So the advice is; go on the trip except that the amount that was paid has been slightly inflated.

Parents will warm up to anything linked to education. This usually works for those studying general science, agric or visual arts where practical work is commonplace.

Schools are notorious for coming up with funny dues, so this will work on parents. Join them when to begin to complain about how the school is using these dues to extract money unduly. If your parents are litigants, don’t try this.

Unless you are in final year, this will not work. The WASSCE requires you to register to sit the exams which qualify you for admission into the university. So you need money for that and some passport photos to attach. The only way around this is to increase the amount slightly; so you pay the original fee and then keep the excess.

This will fly usually weeks before vacation. Educate your parents about ‘Hala week'; (the period when most people will have emptied their boxes) and so some students have resorted to stealing food. It works for must-have boarding school foods such as ‘shito’ and ‘gari’.

Your bucket; towel, sponge, the toothbrush has been stolen. You certainly can’t use someone else’s so this is a sure bet. Be prepared for a talk about how careless you have been.

 

Source: YEN.com.gh

Authors:
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Aba Afful (Copyeditor) Maame Aba serves as a copy editor at YEN.com.gh. She naturally enjoys working with words and has an eye for quality content. She has a keen interest in cyberspace and wants to see YEN.com.gh produce more impactful, thought-provoking, and error-free content. Aba has five years of experience as a content writer, blogger, author, and proofreader. She graduated from the Ghana Institute of Journalism in 2017. She joined the team in 2021.