The Nation Newspaper

Tag: pupils

  • Pupils protest teachers’ strike

    Pupils protest teachers’ strike

    •NUT: we have resumed strike
    •Govt: 25.7% salary increment implemented

    Pupils of UBE Junior Secondary School, NKST Wadata and their counterparts in the primary school on Monday protested the alleged indifference of the Benue State government to the plight of primary school teachers in the state.

    The pupil’s barricaded the NKST Wadata bend. They set bonfires and chanted choruses such as: “no school no road;” “our government is bad,” “Suswam should pay our teachers,” among others.

    Officers of the Nigerian Police were later drafted to the area to disperse the protesters with teargas canisters.

    One of the pupils, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told our reporter that one of their teachers Mr Apa Ehe died because he could not afford to go to the hospital.

    In a similar development, the Benue State arm of the Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT) has started an industrial action to demand for the minimum wage.

    InJune, the state government signed an agreement with the state NUT at the national secretariat to begin the implementation of minimum wage.

    The agreement was signed in Abuja by the state deputy governor on behalf of government, while the NUT officials from Benue also signed on teachers’ behalf.

    With this deal however, the implementation was supposed to have kicked off in August, but teachers accused the government of partial implementation of the agreement, necessitating a renewed strike last week.

    The chairman of NUT, Benue State chapter Comrade Godwin Anya, told The Nation that only N10,00 was posted into their account, adding that this fell short of the minimum wage. He vowed that his colleagues would continue to stay away from classes until the government complies with the agreement.

    But, Special Adviser to the Governor on Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Prince Solomon Wombo, said government would only pay what it can afford and advised teachers to go back to classroom.

    Wombo in whose custody is the money released to SUBEB, said there was crisis in the sharing of federation account adding the Federal government refused to augment shortfalls from its revenue. He stressed that state government also got less from the federation account, resulting in financial crisis to meet the minimum wage.

    He, however, added: “Government has already implemented the 25.7 per cent salary increment which is more than the N18,000 minimum as no teacher in Benue is receiving below the minimum wage.”

  • Pupils protest high fees in Enugu

    Senior secondary school pupils of government-owned Metropolitan Girls’ Secondary School, Enugu yesterday marched on the Government House, Enugu to protest what they called “illegal and high fees” imposed on them.

    The fees, which were said to have been announced by the school bursar, jolted the pupils, who had hitherto paid N1,000 per term.

    On resumption from the long vacation, the school authorities reportedly asked them to pay N13,500.

    On enquiry, the pupils were told that the amount was for the session and it included development fee (N1,500), lesson fee (N1,500) and tuition fee (N9,000).

    The insistence of the school authority to send the pupils home for failure to pay the new school fees resulted in the protest.

    They alleged that they were chased out of school.

    “We organised ourselves and marched on the Government House to make our grievances known,” said the pupils, whose ages range from 13 to 16.

    The head teacher, Mrs. Vero Ude, also came to the Government House ostensibly to stop the protest. She refused to speak to reporters.

    The pupils carried placards, which read: “School fees abuse”, “Poor people must survive” and “N13,500, we no go gree”.

    Security personnel urged them to go back to their classes as the governor was not in office.

    The pupils were not convinced until a top official in the Government House addressed them.

    They were escorted to their school by the security personnel, who ensured that they were not prevented from entering the school premises.

  • School honours former pupils

    Not many secondary schools have reason to recall all their former SS3 pupils after graduation.

    But Mandate Private School, Akesan, a suburb of Lagos, gathered them at the African Sun Amber Residence in GRA, Ikeja, Thursday last week to celebrate their outstanding performance in the May/June 2013 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).

    The worst result of the 20 candidates was seven credits. Eighty per cent recorded between five and eight distinctions and credits in all subjects taken including English and Mathematics.

    For Rev Sunday Attah, MD/Chief Executive Officer of the school, the result was worth celebrating even though none of the candidates won the N50,000 prize he had endowed for anyone who made nine distinctions.

    He said that their success was proof that the school is on the right track in insisting on hard work and rejecting examination malpractice.

    He said though the stance came at a high price – with pupils withdrawn to other schools that offered ‘help’ during examination, and some 22 SS3 pupils that would have graduated with the champions expelled for registering for the November/December Senior School Certificate Examination (for private candidates) – he did not regret it.

    Attah said: “I want to address the champions. I am happy. If you had failed, you won’t know this place. I want to appreciate you. When you started in JSS1, the number was more than this. When we became hard on exam malpractice, many left the school but you remained. But I tell you that 80 per cent of my friends, whose schools engaged in examination malpractice, did not get their results. We have struggled but we cannot trade where we are for anything.

    “You believed in us and you were able to come out in flying colours. This is the first time that out of 20 students that wrote only two had seven credits. The others had mostly distinctions. One person had eight distinction; over 10 people had seven distinctions.”

    He told the champions to be good ambassadors of the school by continuing to work hard.

    “If you can keep trusting God in your own little way and face your books instead of Facebook, and come out with a minimum of 2.1, you will not look for job,” he said.

    Admonishing the scholars to keep up the culture of hard work in the university, Pastor Nelson Ayodele, whose firm, CEO of Standard Mandate International (SMI), helps the school to initiate improvement strategies, said excelling at that level would affirm that the O Level success was no fluke.

    “Go out there to the university and make a first class. Let them know that the eight distinctions you made is no fluke,” he said.

    In his speech, Chairman, Board of Governors, Pastor BiodunTawede said Mandate is beginning to reap the reward of making God its foundation.

    “The foundation of this school is through Christ and that is why we are seeing results. This is not how it was years ago. It is God’s doing,” he said.

    Principal of the school, Mr Victor Olwatoye said the good performance came as a result of quality teaching, mentoring and intense monitoring of activities of teachers and pupils.

    Attesting to the degree of hard work ahead of their examinations, many of the scholars said they were well taught.

    Dolapo Adigun, who made eight As and Bs and one C, said the hard work was worth it.

    “The teachers are very good. They prepared us fright from SS1. Our school was strict about exam malpractice but we all did well. Even those schools that helped their students did not perform as well as we did. They failed papers they needed,” he said.

    Thanking the school for the dinner, Isiaka Olanrewaju said it would motivate those coming behind to perform even better.

    “I feel this is a good way of encouraging students because those of them that saw us coming for this dinner are already looking forward to this event next year,” he said.

    The night ended with the celebrators, dressed in black and gold digging it out on the dance floor. After working so hard to make all their O Level papers at one sitting, they thought they deserved it.

  • Graduands challenged to be problem solvers

    The 2013 Valedictory Service/Prize giving of Wellspring College, Omole Phase 2, gave the Principal, Mrs Oluwayemisi Oloriade the opportunity to celebrate the school’s performance in the 2012 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).

    In her speech, Mrs Oloriade said the school recorded 100 per cent credit passes in 65 per cent of the 20 subjects written by its SS3 candidates. Only Mathematics recorded 54 per cent and she promised parents that performance in the subject will be better this year.

    She said: “In the midst of dwindling academic performance across the country, analysis of the 2012 WAEC result of the school shows 100 per cent credit in 13 subjects (Literature, Commerce, Physics, Agricultural Science, Technical Drawing, Accounts, Christian Religious Knowledge, French, Visual Arts, Government, Food and Nutrition, Music and Geography) above 90 per cent in four subjects (English Language, Biology, Economics and Yoruba) 89 per cent in Igbo Language, 87 per cent in Chemistry and 54 per cent in Mathematics. By the grace of God, the result of Mathematics in the just concluded 2013 WAEC examination will be very impressive.”

    Pupils from other classes defied the rain to present cultural songs and dances to bid their beloved SS3 seniors farewell at the event. The graduands, looking resplendent in black suits and blue sashes draped across their shoulders also joined in the dancing. Some of them stood out during the programme, including a set of triplets, Chimdike Okebugwu and his sisters, Ihunayachi and Olumachi. They are the first set of triplets siblings to graduate from the 10-year old school.

    In an interview with The Nation, the trio said they have gained admission to study in different universities in Ghana.

    Overall best graduand, Oluwatobiloba Alatise also stood out for his brilliance. The teenager told The Nation that he was leaving Wellspring very motivated to be the Valedictorian of the Covenant University(CU), Ota, where he has been accepted to study Accounting.

  • NGO trains pupils

    The Youths Rescue and Care Initiative (YORCI), a non-governmental organisation (NGO), has started the training of about 2,000 students of Eyinni High School, Ibadan on goal-getting skills

    The two-day workshop with the theme: New term, better me, is being sponsored by First Registrars Plc.

    YORCI Executive Director, Mrs Bisilola Asenuga said it is important to groom children from the early stage on the need to have a target in life and develop skills to have a brighter future.

    She lamented that many pupils at the tertiary level have made wrong choices of courses as a result of poor planning or defective background.

    Asenuga said: “Goal setting is not passive, not wishing for something, but it is effective for all walks of life, all areas of life, ages and for all social-economical groups. When you set a goal, it enables you to achieve success, self confidence and better understand the road blocks or problems that you may encounter.

    “Principles on how students can reach their goals include: having strong desire, writing down and setting priorities for them, planning, identifying the benefits, listing the skills and knowledge required, re-adjusting when necessary and celebrating success at every stage.”

    According to her, the NGO has been visiting secondary schools to give thought-provoking lectures on how students can achieve success in life by setting their goals.

    She appealed to parents and guardians to serve as machinery for their children in setting their goal for a brighter future.

    Principal of the school, Mr Gboyega Adeosun, frowned on the imposition of specific subjects of study on students by their parents, advocating that students should have the freedom of choosing their subjects based on their abilities.

    He said: “The government should also endeavour to equip the libraries so that the students can read widely and choose freely any subject of study that suits them most.”

    It’s very sad that most of the public school libraries are bad and it is affecting the future of our students.”

    Explaining what she profited from the exercise, one of the students, Adebola Babatunde, said goal setting techniques have been planted deep in his life. Babatunde promised to work towards becoming successful.

  • Eye defects: Lagos screens pupils

    Lagos State Government has said it had so far screened about 65,000 primary school pupils for eye defects and impairments under its School Health Programme.

    The screening according to the Commissioner for Health, Dr Jide Idris, is one of the strategies employed by the government to reduce the incidence of childhood blindness and pupils dropping out of school or performing poorly as a result of poor vision.

    Idris explained that in addition to the eye screening the pupils benefitted from education on environmental sanitation, personal and oral hygiene, care of the eye and adequate nutrition. Besides, government has trained teachers in childhood blindness prevention amongst pupils.

    About 1,295 teachers have been trained in basic eye blindness detection and prevention and equipped with screening kits and certificates.

    Idris said his ministry was collaborating with the Ministry of Education to ensure that teachers in all the 802 public primary schools in the state are properly trained. Each school is provided with a vision corridor and self-tested billboards. Their training had started to yield benefits as the teachers have so far screened 17,572 pupils; 13,626 were detected to be having vision impairment.

  • Proprietors urge Ogun to suspend pupils’ head count

    Proprietors of private nursery/primary and secondary schools in Ogun State have disagreed with the government’s position that tax paid by a school should be determined by its number of pupils.

    The government said schools should pay two per cent on every pupil’s tuition fee per term as tax.

    It said it would embark on a head count of pupils in private schools to ensure that it is not shortchanged.

    The National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools (NAPPS), Ogun State chapter, disagreed with the proposal, saying it would prevent government officials from conducting the head count.

    Speaking with reporters in Abeokuta, the state capital, NAPPS Chairman Dr. Abayomi Jiboku said officials of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology have started “barging” into private schools for the head count.

    Jiboku said: “Such unwarranted counting includes pupils that might have opted out of schools, those on scholarship and fee defaulters. Proprietors are bound to lose out.

    “We shall resist any government agency breaking into our institutions for a head count aimed at calculating renewal fee for schools. The fee is illegal because there is no law backing it up. In the constitution, schools are to pay N100 yearly.”

    He said as stakeholders in education, proprietors of private schools deserve commendation and should be involved in the formulation of educational policies.

    Jiboku said NAPPS has suggested a “more viable and feasible” alternative, which is the categorisation of schools into small, medium, big and mega. He said each of the categories should be allowed to pay a fixed amount of money as is obtainable in neighbouring states.

    Jiboku urged the government to suspend the head count and discuss with the association.

     

  • Spelling Bee challenges pupils to read

    Founder of the National Spelling Bee Competition Mr Samson Umogu has urged youths to develop themselves and stop thinking of cutting corners.

    Mr Umogu, who spoke to secondary school pupils during the National Spelling Bee Competition (NASCON) at the University of Lagos (UNILAG), said poor performance in English language is a consequence of pupils’failure to develop themselves.

    Umogu lamented the poor reading culture among youths, which results in failure in public exams on English Language.

    He said:”We realise that many Nigerian students don’t do well in English language. Look at the JAMB and WAEC results for example, close to about 80 per cent of students that wrote the examinations failed.”

    However, with NASCON he said pupils would be challenged to prepare themselves. He added that the competition aims to promote English language proficiency among secondary school pupils.

    “You realise that whether you like it or not, all subjects are taught in English. Even you find Yoruba teachers talking in English sometimes. So, we felt that by the time they know that there’s a competition that needs them to get prepared they won’t be looking for ways to cheat,” he said.

    Umogu, who said the contest is the first of its kind at the national level, added that NASCON intends to sustain it yearly.

    “The reason we are doing this is because we want the students to know that someone notices them when they excel. One of those possibilities is to take them round Nigeria for the competition,” he stressed.

    He lamented that response from ministry of education was low and not so encouraging, despite the fact that states spend money for their pupils.

    NASCON Executive Director, Mrs Caroline Eyewuoma said the organisation is trying to improve the standard of education. “We are trying to improve English standard, especially in pronunciation,” she added

    The competition, which is the second edition, featured secondary school participants from Delta, Bayelsa, Cross River, Kwara and Lagos. Finalists were pruned to 40 for the grand finale at UNILAG.

    Winners at the regional level were given dictionaries, exercise books, and pens.

    Miss Zekere Ojochenemi, of Baptist Model High School emerged overall winner in the competition of while Master Obileye A. Oladipupo of ISL Akoka, and Master Mathias Isaac of Ajayi Crowther Memorial College, Bariga, emerged first and second runners up respectively.

    Ojochenemi won the star prize of N250,000, while masters Oladipupo and Ajayi got N150,000 and N100,000 cash prizes.

     

  • Pupils get tips on career

    PUPILS of Elias Secondary School, Oke-Odo, a Lagos suburb have received guidance in some professions. They include law, teaching, journalism, medicine, piloting and nursing.

    The event, which held on the school’s premises, saw the pupils decked in dresses depicting their future professions. For example, while ‘future doctors’ donned the characteristic white overall complemented with a stethoscope slung over their neck, their counterparts ‘lawyers’ were resplendent in their wigs and gowns.

    The school’s Principal, Rev. Joshua Adewale Afolabi, said the school decided to hold the one-day event for four reasons: to make the pupils more focused in their studies, inspire them in their choice of career, know their station in life as well as gains and prospects of their chosen career. “This was why we brought the professionals in their attires, so that the pupils can see them. That is, to enhance and broaden their horizon for the future,” he said.

    One of the chief speakers, Godwin Nsoanga, a medical doctor, gave tips on what it takes to be in his shoes. “You need more concentration. You must be determined to succeed through hard work and prayer. You must be closer to God. I used to pray before I entered the exam hall. Even after graduation, you need to be closer to God. People will want to bribe you to kill a patient.”

    He added: “Today, some students are not ready to read. That is why they spend a lot of time looking for ‘special centres’ to register, where they can cheat to pass.”

    Also a lawyer, Mr Samuel Afilaka, advised parents not to force their wards into any career.

    “In any profession, you must have passion and interest, he said, adding: “You must have basic knowledge of the English Language,have credit passes in five subjects and attend a university to study law. “Can a Christian defend criminals?” some of the curious pupils had enquired. “Yes,” Afilaka responede, “the law presumes every one innocent until found guilty.”

    A matron with the Gbagada General Hospital, Lagos, Gloria Olatunji, spoke on nursing. She said: “In nursing we care and serve people. In the hospital, nurses take care of patients. They are always neat and ready to receive people into the hospital. You are expected to put in extra hours of work. “ To study the five-year course, one needs Physics, Biology and Chemistry. After graduation, you register with the appropriate professional organi-sation, she said.

    Gbenga Olusemo, a Firstbank employee, said to be a successful banker, one needs to be trustworthy, dependable and reliable. “It is a service industry. You must be a good listener and be ready to serve people. The industry is full of risks. A little carelessness can mar one’s career or even send one to jail. Take your studies serious if you want to go into the profession,” he admonished.

    Captain Tega Jason Gbidi, a pilot is of Arik Airline. He told the excited children that fascination about flying drove him into the profession.

    “If you have passion, you will get to where you want to be.”

    The school’s Administrator Mrs Oluwakemi Oluwagunna, described teaching as a noble profession. She emphasised passion as an attribute expected of a good teacher.

    “All you need to be a good teacher is the passion to teach. Beside, you must be a good listener, leader and reader.”Teachers impart knowledge.”

    At the event, a book titled: Hope of a child, written by Miss Onipede Tolu, which was launched on May 1, was read to the pupils’ delight.

     

  • Be security conscious, pupils urged

    Security is usually discussed as it relates to gadgets and strategies people put in place to keep safe.

    However, what constitutes security and insecurity was redefined by Rev. D. K. Verralls at the Children’s Day Thanksgiving Service organised by the Lagos State Ministry of Education on Sunday.

    The cleric in his sermon at the service held at the Chapel of Christ the Light, Alausa, told primary and secondary school pupils at the event that telling lies, having sexual relations, and keeping bad company could pose a security risk to them and their families. He added that being educated on its own is also a form of security.

    “Please do what is right at all times. You close by 4pm, please go straight home. If you do not tell your parents where you are going, you attract insecurity to yourselves. Some of you engage in casual sex. I hope you know it is part of insecurity. Education is a form of security. If people are not educated, they become a nuisance to the society,” he said.

    Rev. Verralls also challenged the pupils to change the society and not be influenced by what is wrong.

    The pupils also got admonition from the Head of Service, Prince Adesegun Ogunlewe and the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Education, Mrs Omolara Erogbogbo.

    Giving some words of wisdom, Ogunlewe urged the pupils to embrace hard work, honesty, and have regard for others.

    “You need to be very hard working to pass through primary and secondary schools. It is only with hard work you can meet the challenges of life,” he said.

    The service featured bible readings, one of which was taken by the Spelling Bee winner and One Day Governor-in-waiting, Boadely Juwon Afolarin, song renditions by the Lagos State School Chorale and the CMS Grammar School Choir, and a presentation by the Children’s Ministry of the church.

    The pupils also got devotionals, colour-in and story books courtesy of the Christ Embassy Church, Oregun.