There has been outrage among teachers of public secondary schools in Ogun State following an incident involving teenage female secondary school students caught smoking in their uniforms.
At least three videos have surfaced on social media, wherein secondary schoolgirls were seen filming themselves as they derived pleasure in smoking shisha.
The most recent of such videos emanated from some students of the popular Abeokuta Girls Grammar School (AGGS), Onikolobo.
It was gathered that one of the girls is the daughter of a justice in the state in whose house the incident took place.
Some of the students have been reportedly suspended over the incident, but the Ogun State Government has kept mum over the incident.
The Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology, Professor Abayomi Arigbabu, said he would not disclose what Governor Dapo Abiodun administration is doing to address the rising level of indecent behaviour among school children.
“We are taking steps to address it. We are taking a number of steps. Just be monitoring what is going on. I don’t want to be talking, I mean, everybody is calling me here and there.
“You will be seeing what we are doing. There will be releases from the ministry,” he said in a text message while responding to the enquiry.
However, the Academic Staff Union of Secondary Schools (ASUSS) in the state, has blamed parents and government for the happenings in Ogun public schools.
ASUSS chairman, Comrade Akeem Lasisi, in an interview said “what we are witnessing in our schools today is as a result of the collapse of core values in the society.”
According to Lasisi, the present generation of students has been brainwashed by society that they would not make it in life unless they engaged in social vices.
“The students have been sold with the lies of yahoo-yahoo; they don’t believe in perseverance anymore. They want themselves to be recognized in the school.
“They want to be identified as ‘big boys and girls’ in the school. It is a result of the collapse of the core values in society.
“Students are no longer ready to learn; they only want to engage in all these extracurricular activities that will enable the society to identify them as big boys and girls.
“The reason is not farfetched, it is because the society too only recognises those adults with unruly behaviour. They believe nobody will recognise them If they are of good conduct in society.
“Moreover, these students are not fools, they know what is going on in the society, in the government circle where the government gives amnesty to terrorists, where they negotiate with kidnappers and so on. These students want to resemble them,” he said.
