The Lagos State government has directed the immediate relocation of students left to learn in uncompleted school building.
This comes on the heels of a report over the weekend by EduCeleb.com on the unconducive learning environment at Aguda Community Senior Secondary School in Lagos.
This directive, which came from the Tutor-General and Permanent Secretary (TGPS), Education District IV, Anike Adekanye who deployed her staff members to the school.
Education District IV manages the educational affairs in Apapa, Lagos Mainland and Surulere Local Government Areas of Lagos State.
A source at the district also told this medium that the report angered the TGPS for “portraying the government in bad light”.
The source who preferred to remain anonymous added that she scolded the principals and some staff members of the four schools within the school complex on Brown Road in the Aguda area of Surulere Local Government.
The three other schools in school complex are Aguda Junior Grammar School, Aguda Senior Grammar School and Aguda Community Junior Secondary School.
She reportedly warned them against allowing any journalist into the compound anymore.
Unconducive learning environment
EduCeleb.com had reported that five classes sited in the uncompleted building often get flooded when it rains.
The report also showed that with the classes not clearly demarcated from one another, there is the tendency for one teacher disturbing the other class.
Stakeholders in the school also told this medium that students and teachers are exposed to health and safety hazards as a result of the continuous use of the building.
This development shows how the school fails in meeting local and global standards of what a classroom should be.
Efforts by teachers and parents to get the attention of the state government had gone unattended to in the past four years that the building had been abandoned prior to the report.
Relocation of classes
Following the directive of the government, the furniture of students have now been relocated to the building mainly serving Aguda Community Junior Secondary School.
What the TGPS proposed was that the school looked for a primary school in its neighbourhood to use for students that had been in the uncompleted building.
The source said, “The TGPS told the school that they should know how they will look for a government primary school around Aguda to put their students or whatever they want to do to keep them off that building.”
A teacher in the school, Mr Tunde Ajayi however disclosed that this idea was not viable.
“But come to think of it, if some students were taken to the primary school far away from us. How can teachers go there to teach for example when we have only one teacher for each subject?
“The principal simply ordered students to leave that building and move to labs and the four classrooms we own in the (junior school) building.”
Due to the COVID-19 precautions taken in Lagos State schools, schools in across the state observe what government called “staggered resumption”.
The earlier report by EduCeleb.com noted that only SS2 and SS3 students totalling about 400 have so far resumed.
While SS3 students attend school on Monday, Wednesday and Friday weekly, those in SS2 do on Tuesday and Thursday weekly.
List of students meant to be in SS1 were only distributed to school principals last week and the students were yet to resume.
It remains to be seen what further steps would be taken to fast-track the completion of the abandoned building prior to the full resumption of all students in the months ahead.
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