…NUT, PTA, ASUU, others express disappointment, blame governors
Parents, students in anxious wait
Some of the candidates of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) in the last West African Senior School Certificate Examinations (WASSCE) whose state governments are indebted to the examination body have expressed their fear over the body’s threat to withhold their results. WAEC has threatened not to release the results of states that are indebted to it except they pay up within the next few days before the announcement of the general results of the other candidates.
This is even as major stakeholders in the nation’s education sector including the Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT); Parents’ Teachers’ Association (PTA); the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and non-governmental organisations such as the Education Rights Campaign (ERC) and Lygel Youths and Leadership Initiative (LYLI), have accused the affected state governors of misplacing their priorities.
The groups have also challenged the states’ commitment towards building a sound future for their youths. Kolade Abobarin, a student from Ogbaagba in Ola-Oluwa Local Government Area of Osun State, is among those currently blaming his parents for withdrawing him from a private school to be enrolled in a public secondary school in the state. Kolade, 17, whose father lectures at the Osun State Polytechnic, Iree, was in 2012 withdrawn from Funmilayo Ige Baderinwa School, Obaagun, Ifelodun Lacal Government Area of the state, and taken to Ataoja School of Science in Osogbo to continue his education from Senior School (SS1).
The attraction, according to the father, Mr. Wale Abobarin, was the free distribution of iPads or “tablet of knowledge” (Opon Imo) to senior school students and the payment of WASSCE fees by Governor Rauf Aregbesola-led administration. Today, the pupil, who wrote the last WASSCE, is busy preparing for the post- Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination screening of the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, where he hopes to study civil engineering, having scaled the first huddle of the UTME by scoring above the 200 cut-off mark.
However, the young Kolade is afraid that WAEC may not release his WASSCE result, which is a major requirement for admission if the state does not pay the money it owes the examination body before the release of the results. Speaking with Saturday Telegraph, Kolade’s father said though, his son is currently in OAU preparing for the test, he is already disturbed by WAEC’s verdict, which may affect the outcome of his screening. He said: “I don’t want to say I am regretting my action for withdrawing him from a private school but it is frustrating. “We only pray the unexpected does not happen and are appealing to the state to fulfill the pledge for the sake of the future of these children.”
Similarly, Oyebamiji Ajara of Bashorun Grammar School in Ibadan, Oyo State, is presently not comfortable with the development. Her fear is that the situation may frustrate her future ambition. The situation is the same for Boladale Yisau (not real name) of Iganmode Grammar School, Ota, Ogun State, whose parents have been mounting pressure on the school management since Monday, to know what fate awaits their son. On Monday, WAEC had threatened to withhold the results some of its candidates in 19 states who participated in the May/June 2015 WASSCE over non-payment of their registration fees by their state governments.
The head of WAEC’s National Office, Mr. Charles Eguridu, while addressing the media on the development in its Yaba office in Lagos had urged the affected states to off-set their debts as soon as possible. He insisted that the Council cannot guarantee that the results of their candidates will be released alongside others. Eguridu, who said the examination body already owed its supervisors as a result of the development, also added that the many contractors of WAEC are currently being owed lots of money.
According to him, a total of 19 states in the country owe the Council, having not paid the entry fees for states government-sponsored candidates for the May/June 2015 WASSCE. “Sadly, the states have been nonchalant towards the payment of the debt, which amount to well over N4 billion. “As I speak to you now, we are cashstrapped as a result of the delay in offsetting the registration fees owed the Council by some states.
“As a result, we are finding it difficult to meet our financial obligations, particularly to our supervisors, examiners and service providers. “We have written to the affected state governments without any response. The poor response is threatening the smooth operations of the Council,” Eguridu said. But in his reaction to the development, the immediate past Chairman of NUT in Lagos State, Mr. Thomson Idowu, accused the concerned state governments of misdirecting their energies and resources Idowu noted that the states concern never had good intention for the children of the poor and that their decision to pay WASSCE fee lacked noble intention but was mere political posturing.
According to him, the innocent children if allowed to experience the psychological trauma associated with withholding of results may not forgive the system for as long as they lived, “because they never solicited for this gesture from the governors in the first instance.” He said: “The danger in their inability to pay will constitute to the life of the affected candidates will be unquantifiable, and the indelible mark will stay longer on their minds that it will be so difficult to erase.” Idowu berated the chairman of the Governors’ Forum and Zamfara State Governor, Abdulazeez Yari, who was reported to have said that the inability of the states to pay up the debt was as a result of mix-ups in identifying the details of the monies owed.
He said Yari’s reason was very unreasonable, insisting that the governor was only justifying the people’s allegation that the whole idea of sponsorship was just an avenue for the governors to loot the treasury. “How can a governor say such a thing? Was he saying there was no verification before the registration? “Was he saying the government never knew the budget before giving approval? Does it mean the Ministries of Education and Finance never harmonised before deciding to take up the burden? “Was that the first time they would be sponsoring? The reason is dirty and the governor deserves knocks for coming to the public to say that,” Idowu stated. Similarly, the NUT chairman in Osun State, Mr. Saka Adesiyan, said the damage will be too great if WAEC’s decision was allowed to come to pass.
Adesiyan, who blamed the governors for paying lip service to the education sector, said if the state could no longer fulfill their obligation to the education sector, the foundation for national development was already in ruin. Also speaking with Saturday Telegraph, the Southwest coordinator of the PTA, Deacon Olusoji Adams, said the governors were not being realistic if they claim they do not have enough resources to pay the fees. According to Adams, it is only the children of the poor who attend public schools and their parents were those put under the sun and in the rain to monitor the governors’ votes at the risk of their lives.
He pleaded with the federal government to quickly intervene and command the defaulting states to fulfill their obligations, saying the nation will be sitting on a keg of gunpowder if the “innocent children were made to suffer the punishment for crime they never committed.” Also pleading for the federal government’s intervention on the matter was the chairman of the Lagos Zone of ASUU, Dr. Sola Nasir, who blamed the governors for what he termed “misplacement of priority”.
According to Nasir, while it is not arguable that physical infrastructure should be invested on by the state, the real bedrock for national development are both education and health sectors. He insisted that if quality education is not given to the people they would come back to vandalise the infrastructure built by the state no matter how beautiful. Nasir, therefore, appealled to both WAEC and concerned states, to resolve the issue within the window period before the release of results. The executive director of LYLI, Mr. Lekan Oladapo, criticised the affected state governors for what he termed failure to secure their various states.
According to Oladapo, the security votes being approved for the governors was not just for providing physical security for themselves and their families “as they currently do” but to secure the state by providing essential things that will make insecurity difficult in the states. He said one of such was to ensure that qualitative education is provided for the youth so that they do not become weapons of crime for the states. In a similar vein, the secretary of Education Rights Campaign (ERC), Mr. Michael Ogundele, said the new development is just one of those contradictions of a capitalist system.
“The working class people are usually at the receiving end of the state’s bad policies,” he stated. Ogundele, who said the rot in Nigeria’s education, was allowed to set in because the governors and the elite class do not have their children in public schools. He called on the affected candidates, their parents and members of the civil societies to organise a mass movement against the governors of the affected states. Meanwhile, investigations by Saturday Telegraph have revealed that some of the states have been rushing to pay the fees to avoid the impending public embarrassment.
The Ogun State Governor, Senator Ibikunle Amosun, for instance, has revealed that he had on Tuesday signed the cheque for N496 million for the payment of the fee. Amosun, who did not give specific reason for the delay, hinted that the state’s wage bill had jumped to about N9 billion monthly.
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