A total of 45 school Principals have been removed from office as Principals and redeployed to the State Post Primary Education Board (PPEB) for collecting six N6000 from each student in excess of the approved levies, while 251 other principals also found to be involved in such ignoble act were sanctioned too but with lesser punishment.

In addition to the sanction, all the affected erring principals totalling 296 are to refund the various monies collected from students before 10th of next month.

Addressing a press conference in Asaba yesterday, the State Commissioner for Education, Mrs. Elizabeth Uvoh-Gardner said that following a discreet investigation carried out, “The findings from the exercise revealed that the issue of illegal collections of money in schools was more global than we imagined.

“So far, a total of 296 Principals have been implicated on the illegal collections of money ranging from N250 to as high as N15,000 for a variety of purposes ranging from release of results to admission.”
According to her, “45 Principals were those who collected N6,000 and above per student for admission into either Junior School Class One (JSS I) or Senior School Class One (SS I) as against the N480 and N1,510 approved for the two classes respectively.

“This category of Principals are hereby removed from office as Principals; they should report to the PPEB for posting to the zonal offices of Permanent Secretaries of PPEB, while Vice Principals should lake over immediately until further notice when new Principals are posted.

“Those principals who collected three thousand and one naira to five thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine naira are to refund all monies and are hereby suspended from being Principals for a period of six months, while principals who collected three thousand naira and below are to refund all monies collected and are to be issued letters of warning.”

The Education Commission said that the action was taken to act as deterrent to others, noting that, “This ministry cannot continue to watch helplessly while a section of the education industry brazenly bleeds the already impoverished parents to death financially in order to enrich themselves and at the same time sabotaging Government’s good intentions for the people.”

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