Confusion in Lagos schools over election holiday

There was confusion on Thursday in Lagos over the state government’s directive asking both the public and private primary and secondary schools across the state to close their doors for a mid-term break ahead of Governorship and House of Assembly elections on Saturday.

It will be recalled that the state’s ministry of education had earlier on Tuesday issued a statement signed by the deputy director of public affairs unit of the ministry, Mr Adesegun Ogundeji, directing all schools to observe only one day (Friday) as midterm break while the Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr Kehinde Bamgbetan, issued a fresh statement on Wednesday countering the earlier position and directed the schools to proceed on two-day mid-term holiday beginning from Thursday and to resume on Monday, March 11.

But our correspondent who moved round observed that some students in both the public and private schools in some areas of Lagos including Ifako-Ijaiye left home for schools and that while the public schools turned their students back home, some private schools were opened for activities.

For example, some students from Ojokoro Junior and Senior High Schools (government-owned) in uniforms told our correspondent that they weren’t aware of government adding Thursday to their holiday.

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They said the information available to them up to the closing time on Wednesday was that there would be school on Thursday and that they were surprised to get to school and met only one teacher who turned them back home.

But when contacted for reaction on the non compliance of some private schools (name withheld) to the directive, the state chairman of the National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools (NAPPS), Alhaji Wasiu Adunmadehin, told Tribune Online that it was not as if those schools which opened their doors didn’t want to comply but that the directive to that effect came very late.

He said even at that, the association still encouraged members to comply since it was a government directive.

The NAPPS boss,  however, noted that it was not unlikely that the schools involved used the day for book reading as Thursday had been set aside as a Book Reading Day and that they would likely involve only those who were principally connected to the programme.