A social media post has claimed the federal government has “privatised secondary school education including unity colleges” in Nigeria.
The user, identified as Olorunyemi Kehinde Patrick, claimed on Facebook that President Bola Tinubu “unsurprisingly” made the announcement as plans to “introduce another form of tax”.
In the post, the user claimed every student in public secondary schools are to pay a total of N380,000 per session.
The user also shared a breakdown of the fees amounting to N380,000 including tuition fee of N97, 000; N10,000 as boarding fee; N45,000 for textbooks; and N13,000 for exercise books.
Other fees include N50,000 for uniform; N10,000 for insurance; stationery N5000, and N10,000 for extra lessons.
“Since it is from Tinubu, it is not news. Not doing so by him would have been a news item,” he wrote.
“Perhaps it is another form of tax on secondary education to enable him to raise enough money to buy new planes for Akpabio and Speaker Abbas for all the” SUPPORT” in shortchanging Nigerians and destroying Nigeria.”
The post has generated 80 likes, 77 comments, and 26 shares by social media users.
VERIFYING THE CLAIM
TheCable noticed several errors in the purported notice such as typography errors and wrong address.
First, one of the fees purported to be “school media” was misspelt as “skool media”.
Also, the user claimed the fees were generated from the “office of the director, senior secondary school education operatives” as against the “office of the director, senior secondary school department” — the correct address.
TheCable also observed a disparity between the signature on the purported post when compared to the signature of Binta Abdulkadir, the director of senior secondary school education.
It was also discovered that the news was not published by prominent news outlets but only a few bloggers shared it.
The federal ministry of education has also dismissed the report, describing it as “fraudulent”.
The ministry said the highest amount paid by Federal Unity Colleges (FUCs) students is N100,000 which is for new students and covers their uniforms and other writing materials.
The ministry said the claim is an attempt to cause “misinformation and mislead parents of students”.
VERDICT
The claim that the federal government has increased fees of Federal Unity Schools to N380,000 is false.
