Zamfara State Commissioner for Education Ibrahim Abdullahi Spirow has declared that, the re-accreditation exercise for all the private schools in Zamfara will commence on Monday hence the Ministry has already constituted a state taskforce to conduct the exercise.
The Commissioner who declared this in an exclusive interview with thunder Blowers online news medium said, the policy of transforming private education in Zamfara is “irreversible” hence Governor Bello Matawalle is passionate about ensuring wholistic reform in the education sector.
Spirow further said, the ministry has come up with some fixed charges for re-accreditation exercise noting that since private schools charges exorbitant fees from the parents they must also pay what is due for the state government as annual dues.
He pointed that any school that needed re-accreditation for category (A) must pay the charges of N300,000, while the sum of N200,000 is to be paid for those applying for category (B) and N100,000 for those applying for category (C) respectively.
He further explained that, those schools that emerged successful after the re-accreditation must also pay a variant sum of N100,000, N75,000 and N50,000 for re-issuance of license to those applying for category (A), (B) and (C) respectively.
He explained that if some private schools like Silver Slate charges up to N149,000 as school fees per term, there is no reason why it should not pay annual dues and other regulated charges for the state government.
The Commissioner further explained that, the essence of the re-accreditation exercise is to use the opportunity to evaluate the curricular used by the private schools, teaching and other instructional aids, qualifications of teachers employed by these private schools as well as make sure that they have met the minimum standard requirement before they are allowed operating.
He said before this measure is taken even the State Ministry for Education does not have the accurate data of private schools operating in the state hence only fifty out of the speculated 500 private schools registered formally with the state ministry of education.
He added that even after the registration some of them only paid N30,000 as registration fees and nothing more after that.
