Ekiti State government has directed students in secondary schools to start paying a token of N1, 000 per term and those of Primary Schools are to pay N500 towards educational development in the State.The Ekiti State Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology, Mr Jide Egunjobi made this known in a release issued in Ado-Ekiti, yesterday. He said all stakeholders in the education sector, including parents and teachers have consented to the introduction of the Education Development Levy.
The Commissioner for Education maintained that “before now, secondary school students were paying N100 as PTA levy, N300 for Extra Lesson and N600 as examination fee while primary school students were paying N100 as PTA levy, N300 for extra lesson and N200 as examination fee, making N600 per term.”
Apart from the Educational Development Levy (EDL) of N1,000, secondary school students will pay N500 as Parents Teachers Association (PTA) levy, N600 for examination, N300 for extra Lesson, making N2, 400 per term while it is proposed that Primary school students will pay N100 as PTA levy, N100 for Extra Lesson, N100 for examination, making a total of N800 per term.
There are 178,263 students in the 879 public primary schools; 48,960 in junior secondary schools and 55,677 in Senior Secondary Schools in Ekiti State, making a total of 282,900.
To ensure that the development is not politicized, the Commissioner for Education noted that the levies were not new in the State. “Students of public schools in Ekiti were paying PTA, examination and extra lesson levies before Governor Fayose assumed office,” Egunjobi said.
Oyo State had last month re-introduced payment of education levy in the state. The state had announced that from the 2015/2016 Academic Session, students would pay annual Education Development Levy of N3,000.
“The payment will be made in three equal installments of N1, 000 per term; the fund gathered will be utilised to complement government’s effort to improve infrastructure in public secondary schools,” Mr Soji Eniade, the State Head of Service had said.
