Reports have it that Governor Wike has siezed the licenses of private schools in Rivers State under controversial circumstances.
Governor Nyesom Wike
Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Ezenwo Wike, on Friday reportedly withdrew the licences of 16 of the state’s most prestigious and top performing private schools for failing to attend a meeting he called for their proprietors.
According to reports, Wike ordered the Education Commissioner to sanction them for not attending a meeting — not for breaking a law or a regulation, no, but because the man in the Rivers Governor’s Office has a short fuse.
At the meeting, Wike also announced that majority of principals of public secondary schools in the state will be suspended for charging illegal levies which placed unnecessary burden on parents.
Wike told the school proprietors at the meeting that his actions are aimed at improving the quality of education in the state. The governor, who served as minister of state for education under Goodluck Jonathan, announced the setting up of a committee to undertake the comprehensive audit of all private schools in the state for the purpose of ascertaining the quality of teachers in such schools, the nature of their environment and their operational capacity.
He said: “This audit committee will work with stakeholders. All schools that are not approved would be shut down immediately. We cannot continue to have illegal schools in the state. ”
He said henceforth no private school will have permanent approval. They will only be given temporary approvals, subject to periodic reviews.
On the payment of levies, Governor Wike said that his administration has commenced the process of harmonizing all rates to eliminate multiple taxation.