Private schools to remain shut in Ekiti –Commissioner

Schools shut by their owners in Ekiti State, to protest the education development levy imposed by the state government may remain closed for a longer period, the Commissioner for Education, Mr. Jide Egunjobi, has said.

Egunjobi, hinted this on Thursday, in a telephone interview with our correspondent.
According to him, school owners who cannot produce evidence of payment of other statutory levies imposed by the state will remain shut even after the ‘’self-imposed strike’’.
School owners, under the aegis of the National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools, had, on Monday, declared a three-day strike to protest the N500 and N1,000 education development levy imposed on primary and secondary schools respectively.
They also accused the state government of imposing multiple taxes on schools.
It was gathered that the levy was to be paid per term.
Accusing some of the proprietors of inflating the levy, the commissioner noted that some of them had already collected the money from parents without remitting the same to the government.
“We have indicated interest to see the receipts of all statutory levies. Receipts of renewal fees, upgrading and approval fees related to the schools must be produced. I have text messages from parents who claimed to have paid the education development levy, yet some of these schools are among those who have not remitted the money to the government.
“Some of these schools already listed the education levy in their bills. One school inflated it to N2,800, while another increased it to N1,500. Parents are not happy. Even primary schools were charged N1,000 instead of N500. I can send you the text messages from the parents,” he said.
Egunjobi also denied that the state planned to take over the schools.
“We don’t have taxes in Ekiti State, we only have levies. We had an education summit last year and all the stakeholders, including NAPPS, agreed on the levies.
“We asked the proprietors to submit their receipts of payment of all statutory levies but to our surprise, they said we were planning to take over their schools. What we realised was that by the time we wanted to refute that, they had shut their schools.
“We want to regulate our school system. Any school that has gone on self-closure will remain shut until they are able to show evidence of all statutory levies. We know that other states have imposed merriment levies, land use charge, entertainment levies, among other levies. But, we are only interested in educational levy,” he said.
However, the Ekiti State NAPPS President, Alhaji Saka Adeleye, told our correspondent on Thursday, that the state government shut down his school.
Adeleye said, “Even my school has been closed by the state government.   I am not aware that schools are inflating the levy. But, this is Nigeria, give people one inch and they will take a mile. However, we are studying the situation. Our officers are going to intervene and we do not want to pre-empt the outcome. We will get across to you as soon as we arrive at a decision.”