Ogun may penalise parents for students’ absenteeism in schools

As public schools in Ogun state will be resuming for second term next week, the Ogun state government has said that it might consider the introduction of shift system in its public primary and secondary schools in the state.

The government also said the parents will now be held responsible for any pupils or students that report late to schools.

This was disclosed by the state Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology, Mrs. Modupe Mujota, in an interview with a private radio station, Rockcity FM.

The Commissioner said that parents would henceforth be penalised for pupils/students absenteeism.

She said government would monitor the movement of pupils and students and deal with parents whose child is not in school during the academic session.

Speaking on shift system, Mrs. Mujota said the development became necessary so as to address the challenge of classroom congestion in public schools in the state, due to free education policy which was one of the cardinal programmes of the Senator Ibikunle Amosun-led administration.

The Commissioner said stakeholders in the education industry would be consulted before implementing the proposed system.

She admitted that the standard classroom situation in the country, is ratio 1: 40, saying the idea of shift system would be extensively discussed at the ministry meeting.

Said she: “It depends on which of the public schools, we have both primary and secondary schools. For the secondary school, I know that that one is being addressed by the virtue of the model schools we are putting up.

“We are also looking at the structural integrity of some of the existing schools that we do have to be sure that there is value in renovating and upgrading such schools.

“You will agree with me that for a school that have been standing for 50 and 60 years, the structural integrity may not be there for you to build on such infrastructure and that will be looked at, on a case by case basis and based on availability of fund.

“Overcrowding, while is not generally a thing that should be desired, is a good problem, because what it demonstrates is that there is a real hunger and yearning in our people for education.

“The challenge for us now is to look at the areas where we don’t have that kind of pressure in the public school system, to divert some of the traffic there and perhaps create the incentives that would allowed parents to consider those alternatives.

“One interesting structure, and I say interesting because we will like to know what the public feels about it.

“Schools start at a particular time and close at a particular time, and after they close, those schools are vacant. So, perhaps one should consider running a shift system, where some students come in the morning, they use the facility and some come in the afternoon and use this facility as well. It could be an option that will may consider going forward rather than having those schools out of use and overly populated when they are in use, who knows maybe, this is the time one should start thinking of some doing the morning shift and some afternoon shift “.