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By Stephen Adeleye.
Kogi Government on Tuesday reaffirmed commitment to correct foundational problems and attitudinal anomalies that have bedeviled the state’s education sector for over two decades of its creation.
Mrs Rosemary Osikoya, the Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology, gave the assurance after an unscheduled monitoring and inspection to some schools in Lokoja.
According to her, the monitoring of teachers and students’ resumption in the state capital, revealed a whole lot of irregularities in the school system due to the past institutional disregard for education.
The commissioner expressed disappointment over the inability of Principals and Head Teachers to keep relevant administrative and academic records of students for future recourse, stressing the need to keep a
comprehensive record of all the students and pupils.
She noted that the teachers were not prepared to teach their students as they all failed to make available their written Lesson Notes and the curriculum for subjects to be taught in their classes for the day or week.
She called for the updated copies of standard records all the students, and directed the schools’ management to henceforth keep the school comprehensive record in order to enhance government’s policies and decision making.
“When policy makers make certain decisions, people begin to shout about witch-hunting when in actual fact, they are the ones witch-hunting themselves. Many things we saw in schools we visited today were shocking and totally unacceptable in this information age.
“The problems we are facing in education were caused by the people who works in the sector, and they should be the people to correct those anomalies; there must be a paradigm shift”, she said.
The commissioner, therefore advised the teachers to go back to the baseline and do things right; have a change of attitude towards their job, train themselves and put their professionalism to work.
Osikoya, who assumed office on Jan 2, 2018, reiterated the need to tackle foundational problems in education by getting accurate data of all schools and teachers in all public schools in the state before thinking of embarking on an exercise to check their competency.
She announced that the state government would hold an “Education Summit” on Jan. 22 as part of activities to mark two years of the present administration which would serve as feedback mechanism and agenda setting for the sector.
She reaffirmed her commitment towards ensuring that the education policy of the New Direction Agenda of the Governor were achieved, calling for the cooperation of all critical stakeholders in building a formidable sector.
The schools visited were Government Girls Secondary School (GGSS) and LGEA Primary School, Sarkin-Noma, and other several schools visited by other monitoring team of the ministry.
Mrs Habibat Albdulrahman, the Principal of GGSS, appeal to the government through the commissioner to provide school a befitting laboratory, additional classrooms and perimeter fencing of the school.
She solicited for Physics, Maths and Chemistry teachers as the school was not having any of them, adding that most of their teachers rarely come to school because they were being owed salaries between 11 to 15 months.
(NAN)
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