As the new academic session of 2022/2023 began, the Edo State Government started to monitor various schools in the state to ensure that students and teachers resumed their academic activities promptly.
The state also enforced the governor’s directive to arrest and prosecute parents and guardians of children who were not in school, by patrolling the streets and other places.
The Commissioner for Education, Joan Osa-Oviawe, who led the monitoring team under the ‘It’s School O’clock’ programme, said that the aim was to make sure that teachers across the state reported to their classes without delay.
She told reporters in Benin City that the governor had already declared that any child found wandering during school hours would be arrested.
She said, “We have field officers in all the 18 local government areas who are implementing this. Anyone we catch now, we will take them to their homes and arrest their parents and guardians and they will sign an undertaking.
“So, the government and the teachers are doing their parts. It is up to the parents to do theirs. And if they don’t want to do it voluntarily, we will have to compel them.”
She added, “I use the word compel because there is a Child Right Law and we have been advocating since 2018 that teaching and learning should start from the first day of resumption. Parents should send their children to school.”
The commissioner also expressed her satisfaction with the compliance level of the schools inspected, saying, “I am very pleased with what I see in terms of the cleanliness and orderliness of our schools, especially our secondary schools. Our teachers are in school, our executive principals are in charge; they are using their initiatives to make the schools conducive and they are also alerting us of erosion issues in the ministry.
“The governor has given us a mandate to work with the various boards to ensure a complete clean-up of all our schools which involves removing weeds, demolishing decayed buildings and having a proper waste management system in all our schools.”
She praised the governor for his political will to transform the state’s education system, saying, “For the first time in history, all our secondary school teachers have been trained, all our executive principals trained; all our TVET teachers trained along with their principals. In basic education also, the upper basic teachers and principals were also trained and in that process, over 5000 people have been trained within the last 2-3 weeks.”
