{"id":78971,"date":"2025-11-19T12:56:18","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T12:56:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=78971"},"modified":"2025-11-19T12:56:18","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T12:56:18","slug":"parents-raise-alarm-over-hidden-illegal-charges-in-fct-schools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/11\/19\/parents-raise-alarm-over-hidden-illegal-charges-in-fct-schools\/","title":{"rendered":"Parents Raise Alarm Over Hidden Illegal Charges in FCT Schools"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Samuel Adeola<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Stakeholders in the education sector have decried the rise of hidden illegal charges in unity colleges and public basic schools across the FCT, despite the Universal Basic Education (UBE), Act guaranteeing free compulsory education.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking in Abuja on Wednesday, they warned that schools now disguise fees as levies, uniforms, or \u201cmandatory items,\u201d forcing many children out of school.<\/p>\n<p>Some unity schools reportedly demand up to N300,000, while several FCT day and boarding schools charge N120,000-N200,000 before admitting students.<\/p>\n<p>Although the UBE Act prohibits fees, investigations show schools list \u201cschool fees\u201d as zero on receipts while embedding charges in uniforms, lockers, medical tests, PTA dues and other levies.<\/p>\n<p>A parent whose child gained admission into Government Science School, Maitama, presented a bill of over N300,000, covering feeding contribution, books, PTA support, hostel items and unreceipted charges.<\/p>\n<p>Others in Kubwa, Nyanya and Gwagwalada also reported paying between N92,000 and N123,000, saying children are denied admission without payment.<\/p>\n<p>PTA national president, Boniface Odeh, condemned the situation as a breach of the UBE Act and urged the Ministry of Education, UBEC and the FCT Education Board to investigate and sanction offenders.<\/p>\n<p>Some school administrators, however, defended the levies, citing lack of funding for maintenance, security and learning materials.<\/p>\n<p>Stakeholders insisted that basic education is a right under the UBE Act and urged urgent government action to stop illegal charges and protect vulnerable families.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Samuel Adeola Stakeholders in the education sector have decried the rise of hidden illegal charges in unity colleges and public basic schools across the FCT, despite the Universal Basic Education (UBE), Act guaranteeing free compulsory education. Speaking in Abuja on Wednesday, they warned that schools now disguise fees as levies, uniforms, or \u201cmandatory items,\u201d [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":78972,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[177,183,172],"tags":[59],"class_list":["post-78971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-abuja-reports","category-education","category-news","tag-featured"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78971"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78971\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78973,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78971\/revisions\/78973"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}