The Kano State Government has expressed its determination to revoke the licence of any privately-owned secondary school that neglects to complete and submit the revalidation form that was recently provided to them.
The threat was given by the Special Adviser on Private and Voluntary Schools, Baba Umar, during a press conference held in his office on Thursday.
According to his statement, the distribution of these forms to the school proprietors is deemed essential in order to facilitate the government’s acquisition of comprehensive student data from all private educational institutions.
According to Umar, a significant number of public schools in Kano, estimated to be over 7,000, have participated in the collection of forms. Out of these, approximately 4,000 schools have collected the forms, while just a little over 2,000 schools have returned the completed forms at present.
He pointed out that the majority of the schools that were required to pay a 10% tax of the tuition they collected to the government had not done so because they were not abiding by the law.
“We discovered that the majority of the school proprietors instead of paying their tax into the government account, were paying directly into the personal account of the former Executive Secretary of the board,” Umar said.
Umar bemoaned the fact that owners of private schools had continued to charge parents exorbitant tuition, but he said that the state government would not stand by and allow such abuse to occur.
No owner, he noted, is permitted to either unilaterally raise tuition without following established procedures or compel parents to purchase books from their school.
He claimed that everyone who criticised the government for the steps taken to rein in these proprietors’ excesses was doing so in order to engage in their illicit operations.
The special adviser advised any proprietor who was dissatisfied with the government’s efforts to clean up the system to challenge him in court rather than using the media in their smear campaign.
However, when approached, one of the proprietors, Ibrahim Murtala, Proprietor of Ma’aimaz Comprehensive School, stated that the 10% tax levied by the state government is excessive given the low rates charged by many schools.
“The school fees charged by schools depend on the location of the school. If a school is located in the city, the fees will be different from the school that is located outside the city.
“Nobody said that the government should not collect tax from private schools but it should be considerate in view of the fact that the proprietors have other commitments towards the running of the schools.
“There is a school which collects N4 million but was asked to pay N9 million tax. The government should know that we run the schools, pay teachers, and do other things,” he said.
As to his statement, the Association of Proprietors of Private Schools convened a meeting to assess the issue and afterwards made the decision to pursue legal action.
The Proprietress of Marshal International School, Hajia Salman, refuted the claim that private schools were compelling parents to purchase books.
“The economic situation is very bad. No school will force parents to buy books but parents should know that textbooks are essential in learning,” she said.
