Some owners of private secondary schools in Lagos and Ogun states on Monday, defied holiday orders by the state governments as classes resumed for Junior Secondary School (JSS3) and Senior Secondary School (SSS3) students.
Investigations by BusinessDay reveal that proprietors of these schools had last Friday directed the students to be reporting to classes as to prepare them adequately for their WAEC and Junior WAEC examinations, respectively.
A visit by our correspondent to some of the schools situated at Alimosho, Agege, Ifako/Ijaiye, Ikeja and Mushin local government areas of the state, confirmed the presence of the students in their respective classes to begin the day’s procedure.
Lagos State government, as part of the preventive measures against the spread of coronavirus pandemic, had on March 19, directed closing down of all public and private schools beginning from Monday, March 23, 2020.
“The move became necessary to prevent our children and their teachers from becoming more vulnerable to the pandemic.
“Children should be encouraged to remain at home. The closure is not intended to create panic but to arrest the spread of the disease, which has become a global threat,” the statement said.
But, some of the teachers, who spoke with our correspondent on why they opted for classes defying government directive to stay at home, said, ‘’We need to prepare our candidates adequately for both examinations.
‘’The government took decisions without consulting owners of private schools who by all standard are stakeholders. Parents pay heavily to have good academic procedure for their children. We can’t afford to disappoint,’’ said a teacher.
However, an official of the state ministry of education, who did not want her name in print, told BusinessDay that government ‘’will see to it that the directives by the government are strictly adhered to by all schools.
‘’A task force on compliance as well as law enforcement personnel will be drafted to all the 57 local government and local council development areas in the state to enforce the directive in the schools.’’
