Parents of school children across the 13 local government areas of Ebonyi State and officials of the State Ministry of Education, (Primary and Secondary) have disagreed over the closure of over 85 illegal and unapproved primary and secondary schools in the state.
The state government, in its new education policy, has commenced the closure of illegal, substandard, and unapproved schools across the state, leading to the disengagement of several teachers, the arrest of proprietors, and the non-refund of school fees paid by parents, as well as the task of new school registration for parents.
Some of the parents who spoke to LEADERSHIP Friday expressed sadness on the timing of the new Policy insisting that such policies should have been communicated to parents early enough and before the commencement of the new academic term.
A parent, Mr Chukwu Onwe, said the timing was wrong. “How can you start closing schools a week after the commencement of a new academic term? Some of us had already paid school fees in preparation for the commencement.
“There was no radio announcement indicating the unapproved schools, that would have helped us to reconsider registering our children in those schools. It is an unfortunate situation that has left many parents frustrated and disenchanted.”
Another parent, Mrs Ifeoma Nwuzor, lamented that the proprietors of the unapproved schools refused to make an effort to refund the school fees paid to them by parents and called for the intervention of the state government.
“The Catholic Bishop of Abakaliki diocese directed heads of all the unapproved schools owned by the church to refund the fees paid by parents, which they carried out, but, unfortunately, other proprietors have vehemently refused to refund parents their money.
“We are now forced to make double payment and double registration. Many of the private schools have also hiked their school fees because of the recent influx to their different schools.”
LEADERSHIP Friday gathered that in Ezza North local government area of the state, more than 49 schools were shutdown and five school proprietors arrested by the taskforce team in the local government.
The chairman of Ezza North LGA, Moses Ogodo-Ali in an interview with LEADERSHIP Friday said that the school closure is a policy of government in the state that all illegal and unapproved schools should be shutdown.
“There is a policy of government in the state that all illegal schools should be closed. And I am a man who respects government policies. When it was introduced to me and I was also informed that it is also on air that illegal schools must be closed down, we had to obey government directive.
I immediately gave approval that the committee set up by the Ministry of Education should go ahead and do their work. This they did, because the schools were illegally operating in the areas”.
Chief Ogodo-Ali warned against politicizing the policy insisting that the move is to sanitize the education system in the state. “Many people do not follow due process in opening a school. If you follow the due process of opening a school, no one will close such schools.”
A member of the Taskforce Team, Mr. Elom Solomon an education supervisor in Ezza North LGA said: “We acted in line with the state government directive to fish out all the unapproved schools and the quack schools, especially those schools that are in the village.
“Some of them are in the open hall, some of them are in one room. So, that’s what we’re doing to make sure that the government’s policy is implemented.
We can’t clampdown on any school that meets up with the standard of the policy of education in Ebonyi State,” he stated.
The education secretary in Ezza North LGA, Mr Nwonuku Francis, said: “We closed down 49 schools in Ezza North LGA because they are substandard. They are unapproved schools.
“Some of the school proprietors are already in the police nets. The new policy has been on air, so anyone saying that they weren’t informed is being economical with the truth. It is no longer business as usual.
This present administration is determined to ensure that the standard of education in the State improves. We want to be number one in everything and to achieve that we must improve on the standard of every of the state policy.”
He advised parents to register their wards in the government approved schools.
