|
Listen to article
|
The Civil Society Action Coalition on Education for All (CACEFA) has accused head-teachers in government-owned schools of sabotaging the free education policy in Enugu State.
Coordinator of the Coalition, Mr. Sobenna Ugwu Anijiogu made the observation during a town hall meeting with various communities in Enugu over the weekend.
While lamenting that the government’s sound policy on basic education was being sabotaged, he called for an action to ensure its full implementation.
‘This is where the Civil Society group comes in, to know the extent and outcome of the policy implementation. If basic education is actually free, to what extent have you been paying teachers’ salaries? What is the teachers’ recruitment like? If it is actually free, let it be driven home and let it be meant that it is free.
Read Also: Private School Owners In Enugu Kick Against Saturday School
‘When you drive down the streets of Enugu, you will see spring up of private schools here and there because there is a gap. There is a statistics we did and found out that little children abscond from school and engross themselves in BETNAIJA gambling,‘ he stated.
He advises the government to ensure that every child gets to the school and that they are being well tutored.
Also speaking, the Secretary of CACEFA, Mrs Florence Ifeanyi-Aneke lamented how children in some public schools pay between N7,000 to N10,000 naira as registration fee despite the free education.
She said some public schools mandated the pupils to bring ten brooms per child and each broom cost N200, making it a total cost of N2000 naira, including other illegal levies.
She advised the Enugu State government to make sure that ENSUBEB explored their monitoring team to scrutinize the activities of public schools in Enugu State.
A staff of the ENSUBEB, who was at the Forum, Mrs Juliet Nnamani, assured that the Enugu State government would not hesitate to punish any public school collecting illegal fees from the school children.
THE EASTERN UPDATES
