Delta govt stops provisional approvals for establishment of private schools

The Delta State government has stopped the granting of provisional approvals to persons who want to establish private schools.

Commissioner for Basic and Secondary Education in the state, Chief Patrick Ukah, disclosed this when leaders of the state’s chapter of the National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools (NAPPS) visited him in his office at the weekend.

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According to him, the decision followed the abuse of such provisional approvals in the past whereby proprietors did nothing to improve standards in their respective schools after getting such approvals.

Ukah bemoaned the situation where private school owners do nothing to improve on what they had on the ground that guaranteed them the provisional approval, stressing that such developments would no longer be tolerated.

The commissioner announced that very soon, the inspectorate department of the ministry would begin to clamp down on private schools that have not completed the processes of getting their full approval and those that do not have approval at all.

He told the leaders of the body to encourage their members to complete their approval processes to avoid the unpleasant consequences of having their schools shut down.

He reminded them of the order of the state governor, Senator Ifeanyi Okowa, to make sports compulsory in all primary and secondary schools in the state, and asked them to key into that policy by making Thursday of every week sports day.

Earlier in his address, the state NAPPS chairman, Deacon Monday Ifoghere, had appealed to the commissioner to look into some of the problems facing members of the association, especially the issue of multiple taxation by different departments and agencies of the state government.