Hoodlums have allegedly destroyed property and took away valuables belonging to public primary and secondary schools in Oyo. It was explain that it happened due to the inability of the schools’ management to pay for the services of security guards and other important bills.
There are 623 secondary schools and 1,576 public primary schools in the state.
Governor Makinde ordered that all forms of payment in public primary and secondary schools stop with immediately effect on May 29 in his inagural speech, leaving the schools without running funds to pay their bills.
It was learnt that if nothing is done by the government to inject funds in the system before the resumption of schools in September, the public schools in the state may witness a very low performance in academic activities and lack of teachers.
Besides, it was gathered that most private teachers hired through the contributions of Parents Teachers Association ( PTA) in public schools were still owed salaries since June .
When contacted the State Chairman of SUBEB , Dr. Nureni Adediran, blamed the immediate past administration for the problems in the education sector.
He however said the current administration was working round to fix the lapses in no distant time.
Though he was angry with the question on the invasion of schools by hoodlums due to lack of funds , Adediran disclosed that the government has promised to give running grants to public schools .
According him, the grants would have to be factored into the budget to enable the concerned agencies disburse it.
A teacher, who spoke in confidence, narrated how the principal’s office was invaded four times within a month in a secondary school at Moniya, Ibadan.
He stated that such ugly case have never happened in the history of the school when it was enjoying the services of security guards.
Also, one of the affected schools in Ido Local Government head teacher who spoke stated that ” We are happy and ready to cooperate with the new government but as I am speaking to you now, a lot of things have gone wrong in the schools .
“The schools were open to attacks by thieves because we could no longer afford to pay them.
“Infact, there are many occasions when the offices were invaded by thieves, taking away valuables because there are no funds to pay security guards.
“The teachers that were employed by parents’ contributions to teach important subjects in the schools could collect their salaries until the schools went on vacation .
” I can tell you that a good number of schools don’t have the needed teachers to teach important subjects but parents had to pay salaries of these teachers after hiring them through payment of one levy or the other.
“Although, the new government has promised to give grants but it will take some time because they will have to first put that in the budget that has not even come up in the first place.
Comments
Post a Comment