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From Wilson Okereke, Afikpo
Ebonyi Government has insisted it would not tolerate collection of unapproved levies in public schools from nursery to tertiary levels.
Commissioner for Education, Onyebuchi Chima, stated this when state officers of the Association of Primary Head Teachers (APSHON) went on familiarisation visit to him in his office in Abakaliki.
He disclosed his ministry would soon start to visit schools and take decisions on culprits. He wondered why some head teachers in urban, semi-urban and rural areas would sit down and plan something else or connive with Parent-Teacher Association chairmen to collect levies not approved by the government.
“Government did not tell anybody to collect money for graft or another payment which the teachers call preparation fees involving N500 per pupil/student.”
He charged them to fight the corruption in primary schools, adding, if the local education secretaries engaged themselves in any illegal activities without recourse to normal procedure, the professionals in the system should raise the alarm to the appropriate quarters in writing.
The commissioner further encouraged the teachers to play active role in what the state was doing by criticising boldly whenever irregularities were being noticed, pointing out that keeping mute in the face of illegal activities would jeopardise the system.
He, therefore, implored his visitors to make teaching profession enterprising, noting that primary school was the building block of education.
