By Ahmad Mubarak
Compulsory graduation ceremonies for pupils in nursery and basic schools across Kogi state have been banned.
Commissioner for Education, Mr. Wemi Jones, disclosed this in Lokoja during a stakeholders’ meeting on basic and secondary education.
According to him, the frequent organisation of graduation ceremonies has placed unnecessary financial burden on parents, making the practice unsustainable.
He said that henceforth, the annual Speech and Prize-Giving Day would serve as the replacement for such ceremonies.
Mr. Jones also declared a ban on the use of textbooks as workbooks, stressing that pupils should carry out exercises in notebooks to ensure textbooks remain reusable for siblings.
He further cautioned private schools against neglecting the registration of their students for the state’s mock examinations emphasizing that schools which fail to comply would not be allowed to register their students for the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).
Earlier, the Director of Basic and Secondary Education, Mr. Mathew Salami, in his welcome address, called for stronger collaboration and collective commitment towards transforming education in the state.
In their separate remarks, the State Chairman of the Academic Staff Union of Secondary Schools (ASUSS), Mr. Emejeh Sunday, and Chairman of the Forum of Education Secretaries, Mr. Adamu Salihu, urged the state government to recruit more teachers to address the challenge of manpower shortage in schools.
Edited by Ajifa Ainoko
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