Parents lament imposition of N10,000 fee in Benue schools

BY PETER DURU

MAKURDI —Parents and guardians in Benue State are now grumbling over alleged imposition of N10,000 fee on secondary school students now preparing for their mock West African School Certificate Examination, WASCE, in their various schools.

About 50, 000 students are said to be involved in the mock examination through out the state.

Some of the aggrieved parents who spoke to Saturday Vanguard, yesterday, in Makurdi on the development said the the imposition of the illegal fees on their wards as precondition to write the examination was another way of denying the children of the poor their right to education.

According to Mrs. Julia Nenga, a widow, whose two children are candidates in one of the secondary schools in Gwer Local Government Area, “parents were asked to pay N14,000 as registration fee for each of our children by their school.

”When we tried to draw the attention of the school’s management to the fact that the stipulated official Mock Examination fee in Benue state was N4,000 they referred us to the State Examination Board.

”We also discovered that most schools in the state illegally imposed a registration fee of between N10,000 and N15,000 on their prospective candidates. We are pleading with the state government to intervene in this matter because some persons are raking billions of Naira from milking poor parents in the face of the economic challenges we are facing.”

The Executive Secretary, Benue State Examination Board could not be reached for comments on the development as he was said to be indisposed.

However an official of the Board who craved anonymity confirmed that the official fee for the examination was N4,000 and regretted that the board lacked the powers to check the excesses of school principals in the state.

Comments are moderated. Please keep them clean and brief.