Students in public secondary schools, in Osun State, have protested against a decision by the government not pay the West African Examination Council fee for about 95 per cent of their colleagues for their poor performance. During the protest, the students vandalised vehicles in a media organisation and carried placards with diverse inscriptions. It was gathered that students sat for the final year mock exam, which would qualified them for the state government paying for their WAEC examination on December 20-24 2015. Head teachers in a Parent-Teachers-Association (PTA) meeting resolved that those that failed should pay N14, 500 for science, while arts and commercial students would pay N14, 050 between Thursday and Monday. On its part, the Osun State Government described the protests by students of high schools in Ife, Iwo and Ikire as shameful. The government said that it was unthinkable that the students, who failed examinations and should be remorseful, face the challenges of correcting their academic poor performance, could go out and vandalise government property in the name of protests. In a statement by the Director, Bureau of Communication and Strategy, Office of the Governor, Mr. Semiu Okanlawon, the government said that its refusal of government to register them for West African School Certificate Examination (WASCE) was because of their performance. "The Government of Osun, in the unmistakeable resolve and determination to bring the best out of the students, has said that it would, henceforth, register only final year students for external examination after the conduct of the in-house mock examination. "Students, who fail to demonstrate their potential success at the final examination by scoring credits in at least four subjects, will not be assisted financially for by the government. Any parent who wants to gamble can register their children." The statement noted that when the Aregbesola administration took over in November 2010, the performance of students in May/June WASCE result for that year was 15.68%. It added that the average performance for the three years (2011-2013) of Aregbesola administration was 21.32%, representing an improvement of 36% compared with the result of 2010. The government stressed that, compared with the average performance (13.26%) of the three years that preceded Aregbesola, the percentage improvement in performance of the Aregbesola years was a whopping 61%.
Written by NEWSTRAWL ONLINE UPDATE
Sodiq Oyeleke is a Media, Human Resources, Project Management and Public Relations Practitioner
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