No fewer than six teachers of St. Joseph Secondary School, Mangoro, Agege, Lagos, have lost their jobs for extorting their pupils. One of the teachers
No fewer than six teachers of St. Joseph Secondary School, Mangoro, Agege, Lagos, have lost their jobs for extorting their pupils. One of the teachers was also said to have been handed over to the police for prosecution.
After thorough investigation, an English and Literature teacher, who demanded N500 each from pupils for a project they were supposed to do themselves, was sacked with immediate effect and handed over to the police. Also the Economics, Computer Science, Commerce, as well as two Mathematics teachers were all sacked.
Their sacking followed a report where teachers demand food, airtime for marks from students if they wanted to pass their subjects. The pupils also accused the teachers of abusing their parents and calling them names. They named their English and Literature teacher, Economics and Mathematics teachers among those who frequently extorted them.
One of the pupils, who identified herself as Janet, recalled how her maths teacher once threatened to deduct two marks from her score if she refused to buy him sausage roll. When asked if she bought him the sausage roll eventually, she said, “I gave him the sausage and he ate it.”
She added, “There are also some teachers who demand for airtime, and it could be as low as N200. They have asked some of us, even when they know we don’t earn salaries. Anyway, some were able to give them while some could not. What we can deduce is that if you are able to part with money or some teachers know you, you would pass very well and we know this is not good.”
While Janet and some others obliged and moved on, another pupil, 15-year-old Rita (not real names) didn’t find it so funny. She said the teacher punished and flogged her for refusing to buy him food.
Janet said, “The teacher said I should buy food for him, I refused, then he told me to kneel down and he flogged me. I even wanted to report to the authorities, but usually they take sides with the teachers, so I didn’t bother. The Economics and Maths teachers are fond of doing that.”
One of the pupils, 14-year-old Esther, also explained how their English and Literature teacher told them to pay N500 each instead of carrying out their project themselves. She added that those of them who didn’t pay got low scores while those who paid were rewarded with high scores. These were some of the many revelations by the pupils and some of their colleagues.
When confronted with the allegations, the Vice Principal, Admin, Mr. Precious Ibiloye, had expressed surprise over the allegations, saying the pupils should have come to his office to report.
“Our teachers know the rules. We will investigate the issues raised and take action on them,” he had promised.
The 55 years old school authorities, in a newsletter, signed by management, to parents, said after a thorough investigation of the issues raised, they decided to take disciplinary action against the indicted teachers, whilst describing the action of the indicted teachers as an embarrassment to the school.
“From our findings, the indicted staff were actually sending some students to their parents for gifts based on their existing rapport and relationships, but as a school that upholds discipline and committed to the development of our students, most of the excuses were unacceptable to us and thus disciplinary action has been taken against them and copies of their letters have been sent to the Lagos State Ministry of Education at Alausa (Ikeja).
“We want to assure you that St. Joseph Secondary School has been sanitised and such will not happen again.”
Punch
