State education commissioner shocked at teachers’ tardiness in school

Hon Wemi Jones, state commissioner of Education in kogi, a state north central of Nigeria, on Tuesday was stupefied at teachers’ lateness to school.

By the state’s regulation, teachers are meant to resume by 7.30 am.

But Hon Jones discovered to his utter chagrin that teachers take their own time before arriving at work.

Kogi is not ranked among the first 15 out of 37 (plus Abuja, FCT) states in the country.

In fact, a 2012 UNESCO report scores it 28th while putting literacy level at barely 33 percent.

Jones gave warning that such habits is no longer tenable.

As part of the state’s new administration new strides, the commissioner had paid an unscheduled Monitoring and Supervision to Crowther Memorial College Lokoja on Tuesday.

The commissioner who arrived the school premises at about 7:45am, lamented why many of the teachers were yet to be in school as against the normal resumption time of 7:30am.

The commissioner took the row call of the school teachers and discovered that majority of them have not resumed on duty as at 8:20am.

Jones, while addressing the teachers, warned that late coming and negligence to duty would no longer be tolerated henceforth in schools across the state.

The commissioner also decried that students who came late are much more than those students who arrived early because teachers themselves usually come late to school.

“Let me assure you that late coming and negligence to duty will definitely not going to continue in any of our schools in Kogi.

“This is the first school I am visiting since I was returned as Commissioner, and we are going to be closely monitoring and inspecting your activities,” Jones said.

The commissioner said that the government would create enough time to ensure that students get the right teachings and quality education they deserved.

He reassured that government would be making education totally free in Kogi by paying for so many things including all the internal and external exams.

He added: “We are going to create a system where Education becomes totally free, where pupils and students will not be charged anything.

“A system where the necessary tools and educational teaching and learning materials will be provided by Government through subvention.

“So, if the government is doing all of that and we did not owe you any salary, we cannot condone you not coming to teach our children no matter who you are.

“We have people who also passed the tests and interviews during the last teachers’ recruitment exercise, but due to the limited space we couldn’t take all of them, and they were put on the waiting list”.

Jones restated his determination to sustaining schools’ monitoring and supervision from time to time, to ensure teachers’ punctuality and regularity to deliver quality education.

The commissioner commended the Old Students’ Association for the ongoing project being executed in the school to supporting government’s efforts in delivering quality education to the citizens of the state.

“As government, we will not shy away from our responsibilities in ensuring standard, order and uniformity in everything that we will do.

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