Jigawa govt warns candidates against truancy

The Jigawa Government has warned secondary school candidates preparing for the 2017 West African and National Examinations against truancy.

Alhaji Abdullahi Yunusa, the Director-General, State Education Inspectorate Monitoring Unit, gave the warning in an interview with News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), in Dutse on Tuesday.

Yunusa noted that with dismay that over 80 per cent of the candidates had stopped attending classes after being registered for the two examinations by the state government.

He said candidates in the habit of playing truancy after a lot of money had been spent to register them would not be allowed to sit for the two examinations.

“I am sure more than N150 million was spent to register them in both NECO and WAEC.

“So, how could the government spend such amount of money for the registration of candidates in order to nurture them to become good citizens and they could not be punctual to their classes.

“I went round to monitor teaching and learning in almost all the schools in some zones.

“And in the process of counting the number of attendance among the students, we discovered that out of the class of 110 or 80, you find that only between 20 and 30 were attending classes.’’

He said government was not ready to condone indiscipline among the candidates from the affected schools for the forth-coming examinations.

According to him, the agency had directed the principals and other staff of the affected schools to disallow such candidates from taking the final examinations.

“We have warned the leadership, the School Based Management Committees (SBMCs), in fact, all the staff in such schools that they will be held accountable if they allow students to be absconding from classes simply because they have registered for WAEC and NECO.

“We will not allow such students to write the examinations because it will be a bad precedent if they are allowed to continue.

“They need to be in class in order to receive coaching and extra lessons and mentoring, particularly with regard to practical.

“So, the leadership of such schools must do everything possible to control this ugly trend by ensuring that the students continue to attend classes for extra lessons in preparation for the upcoming examinations.

“And if they cannot do that, then we will not hesitate to take measures”, he said.