SAN FRANCISCO, October 28, (THEWILL) – Some students of Isale-Oyo Community High School, Oyo town, have reportedly set ablaze some classrooms over mass failure in their examination.
The students were enraged with the implementation of a new promotion policy in the state which stipulates that only pupils with 50 per cent in Mathematics and English language will transit to the next class.
The aggrieved students reportedly stormed the school premises on Thursday morning charting solidarity songs and went berserk setting fire to some blocks of classrooms and fled the premises.
But for the intervention of the Oyo State Fire Service, who responded swiftly to put out the fire when the school authorities alerted them, the fire would have engulfed the school.
The school compound has been deserted as teachers and other pupils reportedly fled for fear of being harmed as policemen were deployed to the school to restore peace but the school has been closed indefinitely.
THEWILL gathered that there had been lingering crises in the state over the policy as students of Anglican Secondary School in Oyo, also reportedly unleashed mayhem on their teachers and destroyed billboards bearing Governor Abiola Ajimobi’s picture.
The Oyo State Commissioner for Education, Prof. Banji Olowofela, insisted that the policy was an opportunity for the students to rediscover themselves as he lamented poor performance of pupils in external examinations.
“What government says is that there is no automatic promotion again. Our external examinations from 1999 till date have been abysmally poor,” he said.
“If we push them to the outside world, we are not helping them. We are trying to give them the opportunity to rediscover themselves. The school has been closed indefinitely.”
Story by Oputah David
