Oyo State Governor Abiola Ajimobi has said that the stoppage in the payment of the West African Secondary School Certificate Examination fee for candidates in the state will be a temporary thing.
The government had this week announced that it would stop paying the examination fees. It also introduced N3,000 annual Developmental Levy for each secondary school student.
According to Ajimobi, the development levy too was for a while. He explained that he took the decision to reduce effects of economic crunch in the state.
“With the paucity of fund in the state, we had to face the reality that we could not continue to sponsor children without involving their parents in a way. This is why we introduced the developmental levy.
“It’s just for a period of time, as soon as things improve for the state financially, we will put it down. It is an emergency situation that we must address”. We discussed with the parents and realised that because parents were not involved in secondary education of their children, they did not bother what happened to them.
“We set up a committee to discuss with Parents Teachers Association, community leaders, individual parents and so on. Interestingly, many of the parents felt that if they were also contributing by paying something, they would be more attentive to the education of their children,” Ajimobi said.
