Oyo state government has ordered the immediate suspension of 13 primary school head teachers, two assistant head teachers and a classroom teacher for extortion and other misconducts.
The state government issued the directive on Monday through the Executive Chairman of the State Universal Basic Education Board, Dr. Nureni Adeniran, following an inspection tour of some schools in Ibadan metropolis.
Adeniran warned that government would not tolerate gross indiscipline among teachers, noting that the board suspended the erring teachers due to established facts met on ground at various schools they supervised.
He added that apart from illegal collection of fees from pupils, the suspended teachers were also found culpable of insubordination and refusal to comply with posting instructions.
The SUBEB chairman stated that the suspended teachers would face disciplinary committee set up by the board.
It would be recalled that the state government, after announcing free and qualitative education in May 2019, approved the payment of N526 million as running grants to primary and secondary schools for the first term of 2019/2020 session.
The schools are expected to submit records of disbursements at the end of each term.
The SUBEB chairman said: “It was during our tour of schools that we discovered the failure of some teachers to comply with posting instructions, while some of them were collecting illegal money from the pupils, despite reiteration of the free-education policy of this administration.”
He added: “So far, we have discovered that some saboteurs are among the teachers, who are flouting the State Government’s directives and pulling down our efforts to sanitise the teaching system in the State.”
He noted that the absence of supervision and monitoring of education activities in the state has given so much room for impunity and indiscipline.