Drama As Secondary School Students Set Class On Fire In Oyo State(See Photo)

One of the razed classrooms
Some students of the Isale - Oyo Community High
School , Oyo town, have gone on rampage , setting their
own classrooms on fire over mass failure in their
examination.
According to The Punch , the aggrieved students
stormed the school premises on Thursday morning
charting solidarity songs.
They were said to have gone haywire afterwards , set
fire to blocks of classrooms and fled the premises. The
school authorities were said to have alerted men of the
Oyo State Fire Service, who responded swiftly to put
out the fire .
Policemen were deployed in the school to restore
peace but none of the students had been arrested as
of the time of filing this report .
The disturbance , observers noted , marked the worst
phase of the unrest that began days ago over mass
failure in exams .
The school compound was deserted as teachers and
other students reportedly fled for fear of being harmed.
Punch reported further that there had been lingering
crises since Monday in some secondary schools in the
state following mass failure in the last promotion
examinations.
The Oyo State Government has set a new promotion
policy which states that only students with 50 per cent
in Mathematics and English language will transit to the
next class .
Students of Anglican Secondary School in Oyo
reportedly unleashed mayhem on their teachers and
destroyed billboards bearing Governor Abiola Ajimobi ’ s
picture .
The Oyo State Commissioner for Education, Prof . Banji
Olowofela , lamented poor performance of pupils in
external examinations, saying public schools could no
longer continue to breed substandard pupils.
“ What government says is that there is no automatic
promotion again . Our external examinations from1999
till date have been abysmally poor . If we push them to
the outside world, we are not helping them.
“ We are trying to give them the opportunity to
rediscover themselves . The school has been closed
indefinitely, ”he added.