From Fred Ezeh, Abuja
The Federal Government has warned principals of Unity Schools to desist from imposing illegal fees on students for 2016/17 academic year and adhere to authorised fees as earlier communicated.
The government also threatened to terminate the appointment of any school principal found to be charging fees outside what was approved by the Ministry of Education.
A statement released in Abuja yesterday by the Deputy Director (Press) in the Ministry of Education, Mr. Bem Ben Goong, noted that the explanation has become necessary, following speculations of some hidden charges being imposed on students by various schools outside the approved charges.
Recall that some students were sent home on the September 18, 2016 resumption date for 2016/17 academic year due to the inability of their parents to pay certain levies that was said to have been introduced by the different schools.
However, the Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, via the statement said that part of the reasons for the recent harmonisation of fees in unity colleges was to ensure that parents pay averagely less, and eliminate indiscriminate charges
Part of the statement reads: “It is in the interest of the parents to acquaint themselves with the approved fees so that they won’t be shortchanged or misled by either the school operators or any other person.”
DBI Kano gets Technical Board’s nod to run Innovation Enterprise School
From Walter Ukaegbu, Abuja
The Digital Bridge Institute (DBI), Kano has got approval to operate as an Innovation Enterprise Institution. This was conveyed to DBI by the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) recently.
The approval letter was signed by Executive Secretary of NBTE, Dr. M.A Kazaure, on behalf of the Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu.
It also said the institution should run the following programmes: National Innovation Diploma (NID) for Telecommunication Technology, Multimedia Technology, Networking and System Security, Computer Software Engineering and Computer Hardware Engineering, among others.
The approval, according to NBTE, was subject to the institution’s strict compliance with the Federal Government’s terms and conditions, governing the operations of Innovation Enterprise Institutions.
Part of the terms contained in the letter is that “the approval is subject to DBI admitting not more than one stream of 30 students for each of the programmes.”
The approval from the NBTE followed a visitation jointly carried out by the Federal Ministry of Education and the National Board for Technical Education.
Director of DBI, Dr. Ike Adinde, said the approval was in the right direction.