Anambra State Branch of the Civil Liberties Organization (CLO) has lauded Governor Charles Soludo for listening to the cries and predicament of students and parents over escalating cost of education in view of hardships necessitated by fuel subsidy removal by abolishing school fees and levies.
This is contained in a statement issued to newsmen by Evangelist Vincent Ezekwueme Chairman and Comrade Chidi Mbah Secretary of the organization.
In the statement tagged: “educate the children of the poor, they will come out of poverty”, the group said the governor had lifted a heavy burden off the shoulders of parents and would by this policy, help curb issues of school dropouts among youths.
It however appealed to him to ensure judicious implementation of the programme so as not to be derailed by enemies of the state.
The group specifically advised Governor Soludo to constitute monitoring committee to ensure strict adherence to his directive as some school heads might want to still disobey the government directive.
The CLO recalled that it had earlier appealed to Gov. Soludo to wade into exploitation of parents and students by schools authorities in the state.
Meanwhile, the group has described as disheartening the outrageous fees charged by missionary schools in the state, lamenting that the current fee regime by missionary schools had defeated the good intentions of the state government in handing over schools to the missions.
The statement read in part: “It is incredible but existential reality that most mission schools charge between N250,000 to N400,000 to new students and JSS3 students entering SSS in the same school yet government pays salaries of teachers.
“For the policy to have wider positive effects, the schools government handed over to churches should be inclusive as government uses tax payers money to pay teachers and staff of these mission schools.
“The aims of government will be relentless efforts without effect if Mission schools and private schools are not call to order and gives operational guidelines”.
The group used the opportunity to call on the governor to take step further by directing schools authorities to stop extorting and exploiting students and parents as they demand outrageous items like big dettol, detergents, toiletries,brooms, cutlass etc while returning from school or they school pay fees ranging from N5000 to N7000 depending on the headteacher or principal.
It equally alerted Gov Soludo that from Holy Trinity Onitsha to Nkwelle Ezunaka to Nsugbe there is no government schools in those axis except Oyolu Primary School and Community Secondary School Nkwelle.
“We reiterate our earlier appeal to governor Soludo to establish Primary and Secondary Schools in those axis as some parents living in the area cannot afford exorbitant school fees by private schools”.
