Category: Education

The management of Dowen College, Lagos has appealed to members of the public to stop spreading false information against the school over the recent death of Sylvester Oromoni, Jnr, its student that died under controversial circumstances on November 30, 2021.

In a statement released on Monday, January 10, the school authorities say the public should allow late Sylvester to rest in peace. The school authorities mentioned that they decided to remain silent since Oromoni’s passing because they wanted experts, law enforcement agencies, the government, and medical authorities, among others to do their jobs and unearth the truth about the incident.

The statement read “At this point, we respectfully request that all those who have consistently, misguidedly and maliciously pushed false information should desist immediately and allow our dear Sylvester’s soul rest peacefully in our Lord’s arms.

“The longstanding integrity, values and processes the school worked tirelessly to maintain over the past 24 years were unfairly called to question and dragged through the mud since.”

The school authorities said the result of the autopsy conducted on the deceased revealed that there was “no bodily harm, no intoxication, but rather that the young boy suffered and died of pre-existing health conditions that had not been treated.”

“Today the truth wins, our faith wins and our integrity wins. We pray that no school or organisation ever has to experience what we have been going through.” the statement added

Last week, the Lagos state Commissioner of Police, Hakeem Odumosu, held a press conference where he mentioned that the two autopsies carried out on late Sylvester’s body concluded he died a natural death.

The family of the deceased however disagree. They argue that the deceased just before his death mentioned the names of five students who attacked him and forcefully gave him something to drink. The family’s lawyer, Femi Falana said the first autopsy conducted on late Sylvester showed he suffered acute lung injury due to chemical intoxication

The Ogun state Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology has announced that students are not allowed to bring phones to school anymore, calling on teachers’ to monitor them to ensure that they don’t bring phones to classes.

Prof. Abayomi Arigbabu stated this at a press briefing held at ministry conference room, Oke-Mosan, Abeokuta on Tuesday.

The Commissioner explained that the advantage of phones cannot be underestimated especially in this time of serious security issues.

Prof. Arigbabu said the reasons students are advised not to bring their phones into school is because phones serve students differently but mostly to disadvantage.

He said: “On the issue of phone in school, what we ordinarily advised is that it will actually distract the students. Teachers will be teaching them and some people will be looking at phones and going to different sites to do nonsense.

“That is why it is actually not encouraged for students to bring phone to class. If they have phones, they can actually put it in their bags and at the close of the day, they can bring it out.”

He added: “But how do we know they don’t bring it out. That is why teachers need monitor them to ensure that they don’t bring phones to classes.

“Phone has its advantages and disadvantages. For instance, if a student is having problem, he/she can make a distress call. But what we are saying is that we won’t allow a student to bring phone to the class to distract you from listening to lessons.

“That is the way we want to deal with phones in school.”

“The Ogun State Ministry of Education, Science and Technology wishes to announce to the general public that the resumption date for the 2nd term 2021/2022 academic session for all primary and secondary schools as well as government science and technical colleges in the state has changed to Monday, 10th January 2022.

The Ogun State Government had earlier fixed January 4 for the resumption of schools. However, in a press statement issued in December 2021, the government announced a change in the date.

According to the State Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology, Prof. Abayomi Arigbabu, learners and parents are required to sign an undertaking to abide by laid down regulations before resumption.

“The change is necessitated by the series of pre-resumption activities lined up by the ministry to further reposition our schools.“As part of resumption guidelines, each parent/guardian and learner are expected, between Tuesday 4th and Monday 10th January 2022, to sign an undertaking of willingness to abide by laid down regulations and support the school in ensuring and enforcing discipline.

“Parents, guardians, and all school administrators are therefore enjoined to note the new resumption date while awaiting details of other pre-resumption activities. We wish all our learners compliments of the season and a peaceful term.”

Five corps members have been found wanting by the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) in Lagos State in the course of the service year and are to repeat the programme.

Mr. Eddy Megwa, Coordinator, NYSC Lagos, made this known on Thursday in Lagos at the passing out of 1,188 corps members of the 2020 Batch B, Stream 2 deployed to the state.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the event, which was observed on a lowkey, was held at the NYSC temporary orientation camp, Iyana Ipaja, Lagos.

Megwa, however, congratulated the outgoing corps members on successful completion of their service year and urged the corps members to make the best use of skill acquisition they acquired to make wealth and be employers of labour.

“These cream of Nigerian youths are exceptional and dedicated; 99 percent of them have proved to give in their best to the state and nation in the course of their service year.

“However, five of them violated the NYSC rules. Once we notice that a corps member is not available consecutively for three months, we declare he/she absconded and the punishment is a repeat of the service year.

“Two of them are guilty of the offense and we are going to remobilise them to that effect, while three others will have their service year extended by two to three months respectively.

“I am proud of other corps members, having selflessly committed and contributed to the socio-economic development of the local government areas, state and the nation at large.

“I urge them to continue to be great ambassadors of NYSC,” he said.

Earlier yesterday, the Lagos State Governor has commissioned newly built secondary school in Elemoro Community in Lagos State.

This was made known via a statement he shared on his Facebook account as read in part:

“I commissioned Elemoro Community Junior Secondary School today to ensure pupils from the community no longer have to walk long-distance before they have access to schools.

“The school, a state-of-the-art edifice at Ibeju Lekki Local Government Area is built with a college-size football pitch completed with 50mm-thick pile of grass and soft infills to ensure playability and fall absorption impact.

“The school is built on 1.54 hectares of land and is designed to offer leaning services, recreational activity and extracurricular leisures.

“Our administration conceived and initiated this school project as an intervention to address a shortfall in access to education in the community. Before the school was built, pupils in the town usually had to walk long distance to schools outside their community.

“The infrastructure installed in the premises offers the platform through which the pupils can fulfill their dreams and ambitions for the future.

“Apart from 18-classroom block, the Elemoro Junior Secondary School also has 12 standard classrooms, six special rooms for Home Economics, Technology room, a studio for arts and music, science laboratory, library and ICT room. It also has teachers’ offices, sickbay, standard canteen block and over 30 toilet facilities.

“Other recreational facilities built in the school include a six-lane sandwich athletics running track and a spacious seating arena.

“Our administration’s vision in education is to ensure every child in public school has unrestricted access to quality education”.

The latest 2021 ranking released by the National Universities Commission (NUC) on Monday, ranked Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, LAUTECH, the fourth best university in Nigeria.

The Oyo state-owned university was also ranked as the best state university, out of 113 universities across the country.

According to the ranking, LAUTECH comes behind the University of Ibadan, Redeemers University and Covenant University, using twelve indicators.

The ranking was listed on Nigeria Universities systems ranking’s website, nusrankings.ng

Meanwhile, the institutions were ranked based on the total number of full-time students, the number of international students, students and staff ratio, efficiency, google scholar index and contribution to the knowledge economy.

Other criteria include; percentage of international staff, percentage of programmes with full-time accreditation, all citation per capital, amongst others.

The Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC), Professor Abubakar Adamu, in an interview assured that ranking in 2022 would be much more impressive.

He said in order to compete with ancient universities in the world, Nigerian tertiary education need consistently improved funding, while commending the committee for coming up with a unique template for the ranking of Nigerian universities.