KWARA State government surely got what it didn’t bargain for when the results of the promotional examinations to SS3 were finally released to the respective schools and then pasted on their notice boards.
Earlier in the week, at a meeting with the school principals, while officially presenting the results to them, Commissioner for Education and Human Development, Mallam Raji Mohammed was furious over the poor performances of the SS2 students and wondered how 42 per cent of the pupils could not pass English and Mathematics and indeed other core subjects and be promoted to the next class. Mohammed, however, said that 7000 candidates who had five credit passes and above, including English and Mathematics or either of the two, would have their National Examination Council fees paid by the state government.
He explained that 11,590 students who were unable to pass either Mathematics or English and had three credit and above are to resit the subjects in SS2. The Commissioner, however, charged the teachers to work towards increasing the number of students of English language and Mathematics in both WAEC and NECO, and solicited for the support of the communities in improving the quality of education in the state.
Quality of education
The Commissioner who solicited for the support of the communities in improving the quality of education in the state following the dismal performance of the students, stressed that their support became necessary as 42 per cent of the 31,590 candidates who sat for this year’s promotional examination to SS3 failed; a situation that made it imperative for them to repeat the class so as to improve the quality of education in the state.
But no sooner were the results pasted on the notice board of the respective secondary schools on Tuesday than all hell broke loose.The pupils, according to Vanguard Metro, VM, findings claimed that the results pasted against their names did not reflect what they considered their good performance at the examinations.But the school authorities were quick to point out that the examinations were marked interchangably by experienced teachers and markers from other schools; so what the students got was what they deserved.
At Government Day Secondary School, Adeta, in Ilorin,the school principal, Alhaja Fatimat Ayedun, escape death by the whiskers from the pupils who hauled stones at her. She ran in and out of her office and was ferried away from the crisis point by the officials of Civil Defense Corps posted to the school.
While narrating her ordeal to VM, she expressed shock at the development, saying that immediately the results were pasted on the notice board: “All of a sudden, we just saw them throwing stones; I was confused and surprised because they know as we do that we were not the markers, the examinations were not marked in this school. We wanted to call the police, but they quickly went and locked the gate. That prevented the police from coming inside the school premises, and the teachers also could not leave the compound. They would have killed me if not for God. Some of my female teachers stood by me, but surprisingly all the male teachers ran away”.
When VM visited the school, there were still broken bottles, stones used as missiles, and remnants of the broken louvre glass and metalic pieces from the damaged ceiling fans in her office. At Government Day Secondary School at Alore,also in Ilorin, it was a different ball game as the school principal was lucky not to have been around when the pupils went on rampage and threw the entire school compound into pandemonium.
Irate pupils at Baboko Secondary School, Ilorin, were even more daring as they fired gunshots into the school from the back of the school fence. This happened as the school authorities were trying to calm down some of the failed students and return them to class.
The Commissioner who later visited the affected schools and addressed the SS2 pupils assembled by their teachers directed them to go home and bring their parents/guardians for a meeting with him, so as to sign undertaking of good behaviour before they would be allowed to return to school.
He told them that whoever failed to bring his/her parent should consider him/herself expelled from the school, saying that government could not condone such pupils who would be a bad influence to others in the school. He added that the damaged government properties in the affected schools would be replaced by the protesting students to further serve as punishment to them.
The Commissioner, who particularly noted that the attitude of the young pupils showed that the society itself has failed, said that the school teachers and indeed the parents and guardians, should be blamed for the unruly behaviour of the pupils.
Vanguard Nigeria
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