Minister Calls for Closure of Dollar-Charging Schools

The Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dr Dele Alake, has declared that schools in Nigeria charging tuition fees in foreign currencies should be shut down.

Alake made the call on Wednesday at the Nigeria Gold Day Celebration on the sidelines of the 10th edition of Nigeria’s Mining Week in Abuja, where he criticised the practice as part of the leakages and loopholes threatening Nigeria’s economic growth.

“I am still going to make a proposal to the Federal Executive Council that all those schools in Nigeria that are charging in foreign currencies should be closed,” Alake stated.

“These are some of these leakages and loopholes that we say exist in our economy that people do not really take these things very seriously.”

The minister elaborated on the economic impact of the practice, noting, “If you look at the foreign currency that goes into some of this, it is humongous.

“If your child is attending a school in Abuja or Lagos or somewhere in the country and is paying 10,000 pounds or 10,000 dollars as their fees, that means you will be looking for naira to go and buy dollars.

“Driving the value of dollar up, whereas this school is in Abuja in Nigeria, you can’t go to UK, establish a school, and then be charging naira, it’s not done.

“It’s only in this country that I see so many contradictory things that really demolish the economy,” he said.

The minister’s comments came as he outlined broader government efforts to address economic leakages, including through digital mechanisms in the gold value chain.

He said the Federal Government’s National Gold Purchase Programme (NGPP), implemented through the Solid Minerals Development Fund (SMDF), was designed to shore up Nigeria’s foreign reserves and strengthen the naira.

Alake explained that the NGPP, a component of the Presidential Artisanal Gold Mining Initiative, allows the government to buy gold directly from artisanal miners in naira, rather than spending foreign exchange to purchase gold internationally.

In her remarks, the Executive Director of SMDF, Fatima Shinkafi, said that gold exploration funding in Nigeria was on an upward trajectory, unlike global trends.

She encouraged conference participants to explore Nigeria’s gold opportunities, stating, “We implore everyone here to examine Nigeria’s gold resources and support the minister’s efforts to make Nigeria a premier destination for junior miners.”

The Nigeria Mining Week, which ran from October 13 to 15, was organised by the Miners Association of Nigeria in partnership with PricewaterhouseCoopers and the VUKA Group.