FG bans PTA,devt levies in unity schools
T
he Federal Government has banned the collection of development levies by the Parent Teachers Association (PTA) in the Federal Government Colleges (unity schools) across the country.
he Federal Government has banned the collection of development levies by the Parent Teachers Association (PTA) in the Federal Government Colleges (unity schools) across the country.According to a statement made available to the newsmen on tuesday evening and signed by the spokesman of the Ministry of Education, Mr Ben Goog, the ban which was announced by the Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, is with immediate effect.
“No Parent Teachers Association (PTA) of any Unity College is allowed to initiate any development project in any of the Unity Colleges without the express or written authorisation of the Federal Ministry of Education,” parts of the statement read.
The new measures, according to the minister are aimed at arresting the shocking trend where Development levies imposed on parents by PTAs are becoming higher than the school fees charged by government which established the unity schools.
Citing examples of PTA collections which have become higher than school fees charged by Government, the minister mentioned Kings College, Lagos, and Federal Science and Technical College, Yaba where the fees charged by government for JSS1 in the first term is N69, 400, while the PTA collections stand at N70,000 and N74,000 respectively per child for the same first term.
While acknowledging the complementary roles played by parents and the support provided by the PTA to the Colleges, the Education minister said he would not allow the PTAs to constitute themselves into a government within a government at the level of Unity schools and at the expense of parents.
On the realignment of charges payable in the unity schools, the minister said there has been no increase in school fees, rather, existing discriminatory charges have now been realigned into a uniform school fees across the unity schools, maintaining that most parents will now pay lower than what they had been subjected to in the past.
The realigned fees according to him now stand at N83,000 across all unity colleges in the country for new intakes, and a recommended maximum of N5,000 PTA levy.