The Federal Government has said students of King’s College, Lagos, will not face higher school fees under the proposed management arrangement with the school’s old boys’ association.
The Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa, gave the assurance on Wednesday in Abuja while responding to concerns over the agreement.
Alausa said the arrangement was aimed at attracting additional resources to improve the school without transferring ownership from the Federal Government.
He said the agreement would be monitored through strict key performance indicators to ensure that the institution and its managers complied with the terms.
According to him, the Ministry of Education has constituted an implementation and monitoring team with powers to conduct unannounced inspections and assess compliance.
The minister said the government was also willing to engage education unions and consider legitimate concerns that could improve the arrangement.
He explained that the poor state of infrastructure in Unity Colleges was the result of decades of deterioration and could not be reversed immediately through government funding alone.
Alausa stressed that the Memorandum of Understanding signed with the King’s College Old Boys’ Association contained safeguards for both government and students.
“There is no fee increase in this arrangement. It is part of the MoU we signed,” the Minister of State for Education, Prof. Suwaiba Ahmad, also said.
Ahmad said the government was committed to ensuring that no teacher lost their job because of the arrangement.
She explained that teachers affected by any redeployment had been allowed to indicate their preferred locations in accordance with the Public Service Rules.
The minister said the government was also implementing teacher capacity-building programmes as part of efforts to improve learning outcomes across Unity Colleges.
She said a committee had been established to review the agreement and address concerns raised by stakeholders, adding that representatives of education unions would participate in monitoring its implementation.
Ahmad, however, urged unions to return to normal operations to enable further discussions with the government.
“With the workers’ protest, we cannot meet with them when they have shut the ministry.
“Normalcy must return to the ministry if the unions want us to listen to them,” she said.
She said the government’s broader objective was to restore the quality and reputation historically associated with Unity Colleges.
According to her, the decline in infrastructure and academic standards occurred over several decades and would require sustained investment in facilities and teacher development.
The minister added that the Federal Government was considering different public-private partnership models for rehabilitating Unity Colleges, with the approach adopted in Kano State among the options being examined.
Alausa also urged journalists to visit the affected schools and independently assess their conditions when reporting on the controversy surrounding the management arrangement.
