UMUAHIA, NIGERIA— The Abia State Federal government has issued a stern warning to administrators of public and private schools across the state, threatening severe legal and administrative sanctions versus any organization discovered obtaining parents through unauthorised graduation charges and ceremonies.
The policy regulation was formally released on Friday, July 10, 2026, by the Public Relations Officer of the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education, Mr Duru Marvellous, on behalf of the substantive Commissioner, Senior citizen Goodluck Ubochi.
The state’s intervention intends to curb the growing pattern of commercialised graduation events for non-terminal classes, a practice that has actually put considerable monetary pressure on families.
Implementing the Statutory Terminal Class Exemption Guideline
Under the freshly strengthened standards, the Ministry explicitly reiterated that graduation ceremonies are lawfully identified and authorized only for the 2 terminal endpoints of the basic and senior secondary education cycles.
Read Also: Kwara prohibits graduation and end-of-session ceremonies in schools.
As a result, the federal government has actually placed an outright ban on mandatory levies for internal transitions, categorizing them as unauthorised extortions.
Immediate Enforcement and Public Reporting Channels
The state government took action following field intelligence reports indicating that numerous school proprietors were continuing to implement high, mandatory graduation fees on students moving in between regular marketing classes.
To ensure strict adherence, the Ministry of Fundamental and Secondary Education has actually deployed tracking and enforcement teams throughout all local government education authorities to carry out unannounced monitoring exercises.
Commissioner Ubochi advised parents, guardians, and education stakeholders to resist these unlawful charges and actively report non-compliant organizations straight to the Ministry for timely investigation and decisive legal action.