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Schools in Oyo State have remained shut in spite of the state government’s directive to reopen yesterday. A correspondent who went round the Ibadan metropolis reports that both primary and secondary schools’ gates were not opened after four weeks of closure.
Some students were seen already dressed in their school uniforms in the morning but they could not enter the school premises.
Some of them, who spoke under a condition of anonymity, said they were in schools based on the directive by the state government that schools should re-open on Monday. However, both teaching and non-teaching staff were absent from the schools visited as the gates remained shut.
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The government had announced the re-opening of public schools in the state with effect from Monday. This directive was contained in a statement signed by Mr. Toye Arulogun, the state’s Commissioner for Information, Culture and Tourism.
According to Arulogun, government decided to reopen the schools with effect from Monday July 11, excluding the 17 schools that participated in the June 6 violent demonstration.
Prominent community leaders, religious leaders as well as traditional rulers and well-meaning Nigerians, had implored the state to reopen the schools. It would be recalled that on June 6, some public school pupils went on rampage to protest government’s proposed public/private participatory management of schools in the state.
The students protested the government decision, following the allegation that their schools had been sold in the process, which government consequently denied.
However, efforts to get the reaction of Waheed Olojede, the Secretary of the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), Oyo State chapter, failed, as he could not be contacted.
