Nsukka: The General Overseer, Highway to Grace Assembly Church, Nsukka, Enugu State, Rev. Chikamadu Eze has threatened to sue the authorities of the Model Primary School 1V in Nsukka, over alleged illegal imposition of N1,300 on the 600 pupils in the school for the construction of toilet facilities. pupils-in-Lagos-schools-11Eze warned that it was not the duty of pupils to construct toilet facilities for school owners and asked both the school Headmistress, Mrs Ogechukwu Nnamani and the Management Base Committee, MBC, of the primary school to stop the alleged illegal levy.
Although the Enugu State government claimed to have introduced free primary and juniour secondary education, there were several levies which made mockery of the policy. Only recently, the state Ministry of Education introduced an N800 compulsory levy on students for alleged online checking of their internal results. In an interview with South East Voice at Nsukka, Eze lamented that the levy would increase the burden on some parents especially those who have up four to five children in the school and consequently lead to a situation whereby children of school age would be out of school as a result of their poor background. Eze said that, “If the headmistress of the school Mrs Nnamani and the committee she set up to that effect insist on the levy, I will take them to court. The headmistress imposed the levy to increase the burden of some parents. I am not fighting my own war but for the poor ones.’’ He said that one of the reasons why some parents send their children to public school was because certificates of public schools were recognized everywhere unlike the private schools, lamenting deliberate efforts by officials to discourage poor parents from educationg their children. ‘’The economy is not bouyant. Some families manage to have food on their table, while some people are busy imposing illegal levies in public schools when the state government had pronounced free education at primary and post primary schools in the state. Model primary school 1V has an existing toilet facility which only needed to be drained and kept clean for the use of the children in the school. Also, other parents and guardians of pupils in the school including Mrs Stella Ani, Mr Sunday Ugwu and Mr Comas Ugwuoke told South East Voice at separate interviews that they opposed the N1, 300 toilet levy as it would bring more financial burden to them. They further said that they were not consulted before the decision to impose the levy was taken. ‘’I have four of my children in the school, where will I get N5, 200.00 to pay for them” Ugwuoke said. The Headmistress of the school, Mrs Nnamani, said that the decision to impose the levy on children was taken during a general meeting of the Parents Teachers Association of the school. ‘’I did not wake up and impose the levy but because I am the headmistress, people are now calling me names for nothing” she said. Mr Malachy Ezugwu, who is the financial secretary at Model 1V MBC, also confirmed the imposition of the N1,300 levy per pupil but noted that it was agreed at a general meeting of the committee set by parents whose children were in the school. “It was agreed in SBMC meeting. I am surprised that some parents now oppose the idea that the money was too much, meanwhile about 161 out of 600 pupils have so far paid the levy,’’ he said Dr Ejike Asadu, education secretary Nsukka Local Government Area, explained that School Management Base Committee, SMBC, replaced Parent’s Teachers’ Association, PTA, in schools adding that they had the right to assist any school in their capacity as deemed necessary, provided it was in accordance with the education curriculum. Asadu, however, assured that no pupil would be punished or sent out from the school because of the levy as it was not imposed by the government but parents of children to assist the school. The Enugu state Commissioner for education, Prof Uchechukwu Okolo, said he had received a report on the matter adding that he full investigation had commenced investigation to ascertain what exactly happened at the said primary in Nsukka, and declined further comments until the he had completed his investigations.
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