EDUCATION: Oyo APC Warns Gov Makinde Against Sanctioning Principals, Others over School Delisting

EDUCATION: Oyo APC Warns Gov Makinde Against Sanctioning Principals, Others over School Delisting.

The All Progressives Congress APC in Oyo state has warned that the decision of Governor Seyi Makinde to sanction principals, teachers and parents of candidates of public secondary schools recently delisted by the West African Examination Council (WAEC) as a result of established cases of sharp practices recorded during the conduct of May/June 2022 examinations stating that caution must be exercised as the state government was more culpable.

WAEC announced last week that 50 public and private secondary schools found guilty after it probed cases of examination malpractices against them as recorded in May/June, 2022 had been delisted and blacklisted as punishment for their shameful acts while the state government reacted to the development by issuing a threat of sanction on the Principals and parents of candidates in the affected schools. The State Commissioner for Education, Barrister Biodun AbdurRaheem said on Monday that the state government was ready to make a scapegoat of the Principals in particular.

In a statement issued on Tuesday and made available to journalists in Ibadan by its Publicity Secretary, Olawale Sadare, Oyo APC bemoaned “the unabated slide of retrogression and embarrassment which the present PDP administration was forcing on the state even without any attempt correct the situation or apologise to the indigenes and residents who are the worst victims.

“How can a government which had earlier claimed credit for a fake glory in education sector now turn round to blame its staff for a manifestation of rot in the same system? If any government would blame only the principals, teachers and parents for examination malpractices in our schools, it must be the one that is popular for socio-economic and political malpractices. How can a man who has turned his own house into a store where he stocks bags of dried maize stolen from his employer’s farmland blame his wife for the presence of rodents in his living room?

“The virus of examination malpractices has been with us in this society for some decades now but the rate at which it permeates the school system in Oyo state in the last three and a half years leaves much to be desired. Meanwhile, the surge cannot be blame on any other one than the present PDP administration since it craves encomiums from all and sundry without readiness to provide the required funds for the smooth and effective running of the system.

“Gov. Makinde has been around for over close to ten school calendar terms now and he only managed to release some paltry sums as running grants for public schools in the first three terms thereby making it extremely hard for teachers and school administrators to perform their duties as expected of them. In addition to this, the same government does little to build new structures to replace the dilapidated ones while common tools and facilities such as chairs, tables, writing boards, laboratory equipments, stationery and toilets are nowhere to be found in most schools.

“We have had about four different individual appointed as Commissioner for Education in the last 42 months and none of them was outstanding because they do not have the required qualifications to administer the sector even the only academic among them was booted out unceremoniously. Permanent secretaries, directors and other top officials in the relevant MDAs do not have the ears of the governor who has been found not to be a ream player and they cannot contribute much.

“Another time bomb is the tertiary education sector in the state where nothing works again. It is only Ladoke Akintola University, Ogbomoso that is not under the jackboot of Platinum Consultant (believed to be a conduit pipe of the cabal in Agodi Government House just like the operators of the Park Management System). Without mincing words, the Makinde administration’s plan to punish principals over delisting of schools by WAEC is to further humiliate them after withholding their running grants for over two years now.” APC added.