Delta State Commissioner for Basic and Secondary Education, Chief Patrick Ukah, has disclosed that the ministry has stopped the granting of provisional approvals to persons who want to establish private schools in the state.

Ukah, who spoke when leaders of the National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools (NAPPS), Delta State chapter, visited him in his office, said that the decision was based on “the abuse of provisional approvals given before now whereby proprietors do nothing to improve standards in their respective schools after getting such approvals.”

He bemoaned the situation where private school owners “do not do anything to add to what they had on the ground that guaranteed them provisional approvals, stressing that such developments would no longer be tolerated.”

The Commissioner revealed that very soon, the Inspectorate Department of the ministry would swing into action to clamp down on private schools that have not completed the processes of getting their full approvals and those that do not have approvals at all.

Ukah said that the excise should not be seen as a revenue drive for the state government, but an exercise aimed at ensuring that approved standards are met in all private schools.

He told the leaders of the body to encourage their members to complete their approval processes to avoid the unpleasant consequences of having their schools shut down.

The Commissioner reminded them of the order of the state governor, Senator Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa, that sports is now compulsory in all primary and secondary schools in the state and asked them to key into the policy that part of Thursday of every week should become a sports day.

He reminded them of the need to register for the 2019/2020 Zenith Bank Delta Principals’ Cup Football Competition billed to kick off on September 30, 2019 “as mouth-watering prizes will be won at various stages of the competition.”

Earlier in his address, the state NAPPS Chairman, Deacon Monday Ifoghere, appealed to the Commissioner to look into some of the problems facing his members especially the issue of multiple taxation by different departments and agencies of the state government.

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