Kogi State de-lists 449 illegal schools

NO fewer than 449 schools have been delisted by the Kogi State Government for illegal operation for contravening the guidelines on the establishment and operation of private schools in the state.

Governor Idris Wada announced this, yesterday, at a briefing commemorating the state’s 23rd anniversary. Wada stated that the decision to de-list the schools followed the submission of the report of the committee on the operation of illegal educational institutions in the state. He said though Kogi State had been named the number one in the North Central, it must still intensify efforts to address the issues of illegal schools.

According to him, “we have discovered that private schools have become centre for scams and mismanagement. We set up a committee on it and we found out that more than 400 private schools are operating without approval and very soon we will descend on them to put their houses in other or go and do something else. “A total of 999 primary schools, 332 secondary schools and 13 tertiary institutions were captured during the exercise that lasted six months.

“Of the 1,331 screened, 556 were officially approved, 346 still processing their documents for approval while 449 were never approved for operation.” Wada described the exercise as a giant stride by government geared towards repositioning the education sector for effective service delivery. Meanwhile,  Wada said contrary to claim that the state had not developed over the 23 years of its existence, the state had made substantial progress in the areas of infrastructural development, agriculture, education among other sectors.

According to him, his administration had also completed many inherited road projects while new ones are being constructed across the three senatorial districts of the state  and has also embarked on the construction of 500 houses for civil servant and other residents of the state.