Oyo Says FG Not Serious About Funding of Education Sector, Students in State Schools to Write WASSCE

The Chairman of Oyo state Post-Primary Schools Teaching Service Commission (TESCOM), Akinlade Alamu, has said that students in state will go ahead and write the 2020 West African Senior School Examination (WASSCE) after the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, said secondary schools under the jurisdiction of the Federal Government would not partake in the examination due to coronavirus pandemic.

Alamu, who spoke on a local programme, Fresh FM, Ibadan, said the state Government led by Governor Seyi Makinde has put in place measures to ensure safety of students and teachers in the schools. He said the Federal Government is not serious about funding of the education sector.

“This govern­ment at Federal level is not helping things in the educa­tion sector. The meagre bud­getary allocation for educa­tion shows clearly that they are less concerned. They have re-opened airline oper­ation. Do they want to tell us that people would not sit together inside an aeroplane or what?

“This epidemic has come to stay with us and we should do everything possible to manage it until we get cur­able drugs for the virus. We should not lock down an im­portant sector like education. If we say we are not writing WASSCE this year, how are we sure that the pandemic would have gone by next year. Is the government saying we are not going to write it next year if Coronavirus persists, God forbid?

“The most important thing is to make adequate provisions for the safety of our students, which we have done and we would continue to do so as events unfold.

“Before we resume in Oyo State, all the stakeholders in the education sector in the state that include TESCOM, SUBEB, PTA and others held meetings with the state COVID-19 management team to fashion ways forward for school resumption,” he said.