Ajimobi Explains Oyo’s Stoppage Of WAEC Fees Payment

GOVERNOR Abiola Ajimobi of Oyo state yesterday explained that the decision to stop payment of the West African Examination Council (WAEC) fees for candidates in the state and the introduction of N3000 annual Developmental Levy for each pupil was a temporary measure.

Ajimobi stated that the decisions were borne out of the economic reality in the state and the desire to address abysmal performance of candidates in the examination.

He added that the decision to introduce levy was taken after it was discovered that parents no longer involve themselves in the education of their children.

He also said that Parents Teachers Associations, community leaders and individual parents were engaged in a discussion before arriving at the decision.

“With paucity of funds, 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 financially, we will put it down. It is an emergency situation that we must address.

“Training of children is not a sole responsibility of government or teachers, parents must play their role too. We discussed with the parents and realized 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 Associations, 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.”

“The N3000 levy was equally jointly agreed at but I must point out that the emergency situation will not be forever. We envisage political backlash to the decision but we cannot promise what we cannot afford. Oyo State now earns around N3bn from Federal Allocation while we have a wage bill of more than N5bn. Our Internally Generated Revenue is N1bn. So every month, we will continue to owe if we don’t adjust our spending,” the governor added.