Private, public schools to resume January 4, Lagos insists

The Lagos State Ministry of Education has insisted that public and private schools in the state will resume on Tuesday, January 4, 2021, to begin the second term of the 2021/2022 academic session.

This is as the Commissioner for Education in the state, Folasade Adefisayo, urged school administrators in all public and private schools in the state to step up safety measures towards reducing insecurity and untoward incidences.

In a statement titled, ‘LASG urges administrators to step up safety in schools,’ the commissioner directed school administrators to ensure that exposure of students to danger within the school premises are neutralised, while ensuring that all potential danger outside the walls of the schools is escalated to appropriate safety and enforcement agencies through stipulated channels.

Adefisayo was quoted as saying, “It is necessary to devise appropriate strategies to advance teachers/students interaction to gain insight and expose negative tendencies before they metamorphose into unfortunate situations. Adequate monitoring, especially as it affects boarding school students, should be instituted to prevent the incidence of bullying and all other vices on school premises.”

The commissioner reiterated the warning of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu that bullying, cultism and other vices would not be tolerated in Lagos schools, just as she enjoined school administrators to increase counselling of students against such vices.

It would be recalled that a 12-year-old boarding student of Dowen College in Lekki, Sylvester Oromoni, was allegedly bullied to death by five of his colleagues.

The case, which is now in court, attracted national outrage, with many observers calling on the state government to revive, adequately fund, and strengthen its education ministry’s inspectorate divisions for effective monitoring of schools and schoolchildren, and jolt school proprietors and parents from their reverie.