The Enugu House of Assembly has chased away some principals of secondary schools who filed a petition to it complaining about the decision of the state the Post-Primary School Management Board to conduct competence examination for them. The House described such petition as frivolous.
Chairman of the House Committee on Education, Mathew Ugwueze, warned the principals after the lawmakers have unanimously threw out the petition and support the idea of competence examination that legislators would not tolerate frivolous petitions that could truncate resolves to move the state’s education sector out of precarious situation.
He said the petition, which challenged the PPSMB authority to summon public school principals for such test was in bad taste “and a call to the dark days.
“As far as I am concerned, that petition holds no water and you should not send such to me again because I will not attend to it.
“We are all in one direction to achieve a better and sound education for our children. I want to tell us that education without tests and promotion makes no meaning.”
The lawmaker said that it is unfortunate that some stakeholders who are products of public schools have not shown enough empathy with the state government in revamping the sector.
Igwueze commended the state government for the achievements it had recorded in the education sector and for ensuring that public schools came back to limelight.
He tasked the principals as products of public schools to reflect on their days in school to determine if the prevailing situations in the sector were encouraging.
“I am telling you as one who is a product of a public school and from a very primitive village that is just experiencing the presence of a secondary school for the first time of its existence.
“The very first secondary school in my village just got underway and the principal only resumed on September 21, while the teachers may have just started to arrive.
“It is as bad as that, yet I saw myself in the House of Assembly. Please you should preach to your conscience and contribute in taking the sector forward.”
It would be recalled that prior to the commencement of the 2016/2017 academic session, the PPSMB organized a competence examination for public school principals and their vice to ascertain their work ethic.
The exercise however did not go down well with a few of the participants who sent a petition to the State House of Assembly. [myad]
