Osun State Government on Friday described as shameful Thursday’s protests by some secondary school students in the state over its refusal to pay their fees for the West African Senior Secondary Certificate Examination.
Due to the cash crunch being experienced by the state, the state government had decided that it would only pay the fees of Senior Secondary School 3 students who had at least four credits in their mock examination.
The government has, however, said it was surprising that students who failed their examination and should be remorseful could “vandalise government’s property in the name of protests.”
In a statement by the Director, Bureau of Communication and Strategy, Office of the Governor, Mr. Semiu Okanlawon, which was made available to Saturday PUNCH on Friday, the state government said its refusal to register the students for the external examination was because of their poor performance, saying it would be irresponsible to continue to fund examination registrations of students who did not demonstrate readiness to pass.
The statement read in part, “Students who fail to demonstrate their potential success at the final examination by scoring credits in at least four subjects will not be paid for by the government. Any parent who wants to gamble can register their children.”
It noted that the government would expect significant improvement in the average performance of its registered students in both WASSCE and National Examination Council examination.
It said, “It is this decision of government that some disgruntled few among the students went to the streets to protest against in Ile-Ife and Iwo.
“Whereas government decision was first and foremost informed on the need to seek better performance of the students. Besides, the economic realities no longer permit wastage of resources.”
Meanwhile, the Speaker of Osun State House of Assembly, Mr. Najeem Salaam, has blamed the management of St. John’s High School, Ile-Ife and security agents in the state for the destruction of property belonging to the state government.
Salaam, in a statement made available to our correspondent in Osogbo by his media aide, Mr. Goke Butika, also called on the police to bring the persons responsible for vandalising public property to book.
He said, “The Commissioner of Police should smoke out the students involved and their instigators for the law to take its course. Such miscreants, who vandalised the radio station are not supposed to be in conventional schools, but juvenile homes.
“The state parliament would soon deliberate on what would be the fate of the school management concerned.”
Salaam said that the lawmakers would come up with a legislation that would recommend severe punishment for violent attitude in public schools.
~Punch
