January 15, 2023
The state secondary education board in Akwa Ibom state has hinged the 100% increase in boarding fees on the current economic realities in the country.
Last week, some parents of students in Cornelia Connelly College, CCC, Afaha Oku had reached out to Inspiration Fm and expressed displeasure over the increase of boarding fees from 30,000 to 60,000 despite the free and compulsory education mantra being preached by the state government.
Speaking exclusively to Inspiration Fm’s education correspondent, UHUOTU OMILABU, executive chairman of the state secondary education board, Mrs. EKAETTE OKON insisted that the decision became necessary owing to how the economy has panned out recently.
“The economy is not just what it used to be, on a daily basis there is increment in terms of food and every other thing in the market, we find it difficult to continue running a boarding school with the money that parents and students were paying”
“I also want to draw your attention that the same parents that are complaining in our public schools are the same parents that send their children to private boarding schools. In some of these private boarding schools, their charges are about 350,000, 250,000 but here you find the state government pegging the price at 60,000, giving breakfast, lunch and dinner for 13 weeks.”
Mrs. EKAETTE further appealed to parents to applaud the efforts of the government in subsizing education in the state instead of complaining, saying that education cannot be totally free.
“There is no part of the world that education is totally free, that parents only produce children and send them to government schools and expect government to do everything. It’s not done anywhere in the entire world. Education is capital intensive.
“If these children are supposed to pay tuition fee, I am sure that it will not be anything less than a 100,000. Look at simple private nursery and primary school, a child in the crèche will pay up to 60,000 and then in nursery school some of them pay 140,000 and we are talking of secondary school and parents are complaining”
The increment in boarding fees cuts across all secondary schools in the state and does not cover for other items like sanitary tools that students are expected to bring along to school.
May 13, 2022
Students under the aegis of Fund Education Coalition have taken protests to some Federal highways in the Southern parts of Nigeria. Students of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State, and their counterparts at University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Enugu State, yesterday took to the highways, stopping vehicular movements in protest against the continous strike embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU.
While the OAU students barricaded the Ife-Ibadan expressway, students of the University of Nigeria, shutdown the Nsukka-Opi-Enugu, where travellers remained stranded as the blockade caused traffic snarls.
The students, vowed to continue the protests till their demand of addressing issues raised by ASUU and reopening universities was met by the Federal Government. Their uniform demand being an immediate end to the strike embarked upon by ASUU.
The visibly angry students, who turned out in their hundreds, accused the Federal Government and ASUU of toying with their future, threatening that they would cripple economic and political activities nationwide, if the strike was not called off.
The students, who said they were tired of staying idle at home, urged politicians to inject the huge sums of money used in purchasing nomination forms into resolving the impasse between ASUU and Federal Government.
May 13, 2022
The Independent Electoral Commission has declared that 1,126,359 out of 2,523,458 Permanent Voters Cards registered online between June and December 2021 are invalid.
Professor Sa’idu Babura,The Resident Electoral Commissioner in charge of Zamfara State noted this while speaking to journalists in his office in Gusau on Thursday.
Babura said, “After the authentication exercise, it was discovered that out of the 2,523,458 registrants nationwide, 1,390,519 are valid while 1,126,359 are invalid.
“This means that 44.6% of all those registered between June and December 2021 are multiple registrations.”
He decried the poor response of Nigerians to the ongoing Voter Registration exercise which ends on June 30, 2022.
May 12, 2022
The Akwa Ibom State Government has reiterated its w commitment towards investing in the education sector of the State to ensure a better future for every Akwa Ibom child.
The Commissioner for Education, Mrs. Idongesit Etiebet made this declaration at the open briefing of Principals, supervisors and other examination functionaries for the 2022 WASSCE examination held at Community Secondary Commercial School, Aka Offot on Friday.
The commissioner called on key players and stakeholders in the education sector to collectively employ strategies and modalities towards delivering an examination devoid of malpractices and other negative vices in line with Governor Emmanuel’s zero tolerance to such tendencies, in the upcoming West African Senior School Certificate Examination for Schools Candidates (WASSCE-SC) in the State.
Mrs. Etiebet stated that the Akwa Ibom State Government will be spending eight hundred and thirty million (N 830,000,000) to ensure that children in public secondary schools write the WASSCE examination this year.
Recounting that education is still free and compulsory at the basic level and highly subsidized at the tertiary level, the education boss reiterated the state of emergency declared in the education sector and the target given by Governor Udom Emmanuel last year for 80 percent of the students writing WASSCE to score a minimum of five credits in subjects including English Language and Mathematics and further appealed that the target percentage which has been increased to 90 percent this year be achieved.
While noting the increment of WASSCE fees from 13,900 to 18,000 this year, she maintained that Principals and supervisors are critical stakeholders in ensuring that the students receive qualitative education and graduate by their own efforts to make sure that they defend the certificate they are being issued.
The Education Commissioner noted remarkably the synergy that exists between the present administration in the state and the West African Examination Council (WAEC) over the years and commended WAEC, the WAEC Deputy Registrar/ and Zonal Coordinator, Engineer A. Adebolu and all the WAEC staff working in Akwa Ibom State who have done all it takes to make sure Akwa Ibom children come out with excellent results, adding that the supervision that goes on in collaboratively by the Ministry of Education, the school boards and the team from WAEC is highly commendable.
She thanked the teachers, Principals and supervisors in both public and private schools for the good job of teaching, grooming and tutoring the students especially those in exit classes to be equipped for the examination and enjoined them to do last minutes revisions with with their students by suggesting ways that can assist them in answering the questions correctly through acronyms and abbreviations to boost their retentiveness.
