NUT Warns Against Illegal Fees Collection In Schools

Chairman, Lagos State
Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), Mrs Gbolahan Dawodu, has warned members of the Nigeria Union of Teachers  in primary and secondary schools, Lagos State,  to desist from collecting illegal fees from pupils or face sanction.
Dawodu gave the warning while speaking at the State‘s Education Corporate Social Responsibility Awards held in Lagos, recently.
The chairman was responding to an allegation by the founder of an NGO, Mrs Adebiyi Olubukola, that a teacher brutalised a pupil for failing to pay extra-lesson fees.
Olubukola, founder of JAKIN, an HIV related organisation, also accused the teacher to have collected “a series of illegal fees’’ from other pupils.
Dawodu said there was no basis for any public school teacher to collect extra lessons fees or other unauthorised fees from pupils, adding that government had provided everything in public schools for free.
She described the development as an “embarrassment’’, saying the government would dig into the issue to ensure that justice was done.
“We have always unequivocally said to our parents and others that no teacher has a right to collect a kobo from any student because the practice is clearly against the policies of the state government.
“Lagos can pride itself as a state that has consistently provided free education to all pupils and when we talk about free education, we are talking of free tuition, free books and others.
“We have always severely punished teachers caught doing such unauthorised things. We will surely get to the bottom of this embarrassing issue, and appropriate punishment will be meted out to the teacher, if found guilty,’’ she said.
Dawodu urged parents, guardians and others who had proven cases of teachers‘ extortion not to hesitate to lodge their complaints with the Ministry of Education, for the right action.
The SUBEB Chairman restated the commitment of the state government to the protection of the rights of pupils across schools in the state.