Ogun takes over 28 community schools, absorbs 577 teachers

The Ogun State government said Tuesday that it has taken over the management of 28 community schools and absorbed 577 teachers serving in those schools into the civil service.

A statement by the Chief Press Secretary to Governor Dapo Abiodun, Kunle Somorin, said the state government took the decision because “most of the community schools were insolvent.”

The statement quoted the Special Adviser to the Governor on Primary, Secondary and Vocational Education, Mrs Aderonke Soyombo, as saying the primary interest of the government was to ensure about 9,000 pupils in the schools are not affected by the condition of the schools.

The Special Adviser stated further that the community schools were absorbed “after they were rejected and left alone by the immediate past administration in the state.”

Soyombo assured that absorption of the 577 teachers won’t affect the current exercise of recruiting 1500 teachers, saying it is a separate exercise.

“The schools were passed unto us. The last dispensation didn’t take it over; they didn’t absorb them. What we did was to absorb them.

“What we looked at was the number of children that will suffer and the number was about 9,000. So, instead of those children suffering like that, we will rather take them in and empower those schools,” she said.

Soyombo expressed dismay that some schools had no principal and vice principals for over two years, while a teacher takes about 209 students in a class.