PTA levy: 350 staff in S’West unity colleges may lose jobs — Somefun

Ayopo Somefun

By Adesina Wahab

Ayopo Somefun is the South-West Zonal Co-ordinator of Parent Teacher Association of Unity Colleges, and also the Chairman of PTA of Federal Government Technical College, Ijebu Imushin, Ogun State. In this interview, he speaks on some issues relating to the running of the colleges, the challenges facing them among others, in this interview with Adesina Wahab. Excerpts.

How would you describe the state of our unity colleges? Some have been in the news for the wrong reasons lately like the outbreak of contagious diseases in some of them.

The outbreak of diphtheria in one of the schools last year is nothing to worry about. There has always been outbreak of contagious diseases in the country. It is just quite unfortunate that it happened at Kings College last year. That can happen anywhere. When it happened, the management took necessary action and every other unity college followed suit. However, the public health situation in the country is bad. That is why we may not be able to eradicate some diseases. You still see sewage being dumped indiscriminately, you still see open defecation in several places. Those are the things to be addressed. Once they are addressed, there will be better health outlook for the country.

In what ways have the PTA intervened in those schools recently? There are even cases of some people encroaching on their lands.

We have done a lot in the last two years. Parents have bridged the gap resulting from the inadequacies of the government especially in the area of funding and logistics. At Ijebu Imushin, the parents have done a lot to save the school because sometimes due to bureaucracy, the schools are unable to get certain things done themselves unless they recourse to Abuja. Some of these things, the PTA can do them convincingly.

In the cases of some people encroaching into the lands of the unity schools, I think it may be because necessary records are no longer intact. If all necessary records regarding the space acquired for the schools are intact, whoever encroaches therein will lose at the end of the day.

As the Coordinator of PTA of Unity Schools in the South-West, what is your view on quota system?

Quota system is to balance education across board in the country. It has been in existence for long. What I want to say is that I won’t want it abolished. This is because it is always difficult if one region is moving at an accelerated pace and others are not. Instead of abolishing it, we can give more opportunities to people on merit. Without the quota system, it would be difficult to maintain the Nigerian diversity that we are used to. This is because we are not all endowed at the same level environmentally, culturally and so on.

The issue of PTA teachers has become controversial in some schools, is it the responsibility of parents to employ teachers for their children and wards?

Really, it is not the responsibility of parents to employ teachers and non-teaching staff, but PTA sees it as a way of supporting the government and alleviating the inadequacies of the government in the education sector. For example, in Ijebu Imushin Technical College, every month we pay N4.3 million to 73 PTA teaching and non-teaching staff. Some have been PTA teachers for 10 or even 12 years. In January 2025, we increased their minimum pay. We still have some collecting say N50,000 monthly. At the Federal Government College, Ijanikin, Lagos, they have 104 of such staff and they pay over N4.8 million monthly to them as salaries. Unfortunately, the Federal Government issued a circular that all technical colleges should peg their PTA levy at N5,000. The implication of that is that after resumption for the third term in May this year, we will not have the money to pay the staff we hired to bridge the gaps in those schools.

Then the students will be writing their third term examination and even other external examinations such as WAEC and NECO. I think the information by the Federal Ministry of Education was erroneously taken or may be the Education Minister, Dr Tunji Alausa is not abreast of developments in the unity schools. Now, in the South-West, we spend over N40 million monthly to pay PTA-employed workers in those schools. We provide diesel, food and even materials to aid security in those schools. We support staff in hotels to ensure cleanliness and hygiene. When they are yet to implement the 2025 and 2026 budgets, there will be problems. I enjoin the Minister of Education to reverse that decision. PTA levy has always been used to bridge the gap in government support and funding. The decision to collect only N5,000 will lead to crisis in May this year. The PTA staff will be withdrawn and students who will be writing WAEC and NECO examinations will be hard hit. I am talking of over 350 PTA staff in unity schools in the South-West.

The Minister said recently that some of the qualified PTA staff would be absorbed into the Federal Civil Service, have they started that?

They have not started absorbing or integrating them into the Federal Civil Service. As I am talking to you, from what I saw in the 2025 and 2026 budgets, there is no provision to absorb them. The best interest of the nation is for the government to still hide under the support of the PTA and things can still run smoothly or else, they will create crisis by June this year. And if those staff are not paid and they withdraw their services, there will be crisis and it will be an indictment of the government.

What advice do you have for the Minister of Education?

The advice I have for him is to allow the PTA leadership in each school to sit with the parents in congresses and determine the intervention that is necessary in terms of PTA levy to charge in each school. The levy that is appropriate to meet the peculiar needs of their schools. I know some schools collect over N20,000 as PTA levy because they provide diesel, food and other things. For instance, last December, we provided food items worth over N2 million for our college in Ijebu Imushin to supplement what government had for our children and that is the way to make quality education available for our children.

Any advice for state and federal government?

I just want to speak on patriotism and how to engender it in our young ones. It is important that government creates an advocacy that I call Ethics and Values in our schools. The patriotism of our young ones is diminishing very fast unlike when we were growing up.

They don’t want to hear anything about the country or even associate with the country. We need that Ethics and Values orientation to be incorporated into our school curricular. Our culture should be sustained in schools for us to have better leaders and future.