By; BAYO AKAMO, Ibadan.
Oyo State Government is insisting that there will be no more automatic promotion in all the public secondary schools in the state.
The state Commissioner for Information, Culture and Tourism, Mr. Toye Arulogun stated this in Ibadan while featuring on the Broadcasting Corporation of Oyo State (BCOS TV) weekend magazine programme
Saturday Special.
According to Mr Arulogun, the no automatic promotions policy in public secondary schools was part of the state government’s decision to reform the education sector which would be pursued rigorously until it yields positive results.
The Commissioner for Information, Culture and Tourism declared that the on-going reforms in the education sector was inevitable considering the consistent high number of failures in WAEC Examinations which is a key yardstick for performance measurement.
“We cannot encourage automatic promotion with the woeful performance of our students in examinations in the last 15 years. The statistics we have from the Ministry of Education strongly support the state government’s stance. In the Year 2008, 61,232 sat for the exam, 5,608 passed, Year 2009 60,444 sat for the exam, 7,204 passed. Year 2010, 65,330 sat for the exam, 8,757 passed, in 2011, 72,559 sat for the exam and 12,314 passed while in 2012, there were 75, 179 candidates and 12,314 passed,he said.
Emphasizing that no amount of protests would deter the state from changing its stand on the no automatic promotion policy in public secondary schools in the state, Mr Arulogun added that the government can no longer fold its hands while Oyo state will continue to occupy the rung of the ladder positions in the senior school certificate examinations (WAEC and NECO) when it should be setting the pace,
“The situation has been the same in the last three years. In 2013, 74,319 wrote the exams, 16,049 passed, in the year 2014, 77,685 sat for the exam and 16,197 passed and in 2015, there were 78,897 candidates and 17,051 passed. The step to sustain the cancellation of automatic promotion was taken in the overall interest of the public. We must give our children quality education,”
The Commissioner noted that Oyo “state is known for many firsts and her education sector should be the benchmark for others”.
