No Child Living In Ekiti State Should Be Out Of School – Fayemi

Ekiti State governor, Kayode Fayemi has said parents who keep their school-age kids out of school will be dealt with from now on.

Speaking in Eporo during an enrolment sensitisation campaign, Fayemi admonished parents and guardians to accept his government’s free education programme.

Fayemi emphasised that Ekiti’s Child Rights Law caters for all kids and their access to education, plus going against that law will be the wrong thing to do.

His words, “We have a Child Rights Act in Ekiti which prohibits parents from disallowing children of school age to be out of school during school session.

“If your child is not in school when the school is in session, you have a lot to explain because we will apprehend the child whether he is found hawking on the street or engaging in any illicit activities which prevent him or her from being in school.

“The parents will also have to explain to the government or the relevant institutions why that child is not in school.

“In implementing the law, we have a family court in the state that takes responsibility for children that are not in school and parents who fail in their responsibility.”

“For us in Ekiti, it is not enough to say we have free education. We need to enlighten our people, particularly those in the rural communities on the importance of education and the necessity for their wards to be enrolled.

“This is because education is also compulsory in our state, and we are doing this for basic education level because we have experienced some challenges in the last four years in the state.

“Enrolment figures in the state used to be the highest in the country up till 2014, and then we suffered a decrease in enrolment, according to UBEC’s national figure.

“We have a duty as a government to ensure that we get the figure back to where it used to be in order to build the foundation that is solid for our children.

“I think we have a duty to ensure that we don’t just encourage them to come to school but also provide everything to make sure education is pay-less for them.

“We are providing instructional materials and the school feeding that we now offer in primary school and encouraging teachers to deliver competently.

“Also, we are working on the school environment because it is not just the teacher’s quality, but also the learning environment that contributes to the growth and development of the average child.

“You cannot put children in an environment where they can’t learn properly because they have no table and chairs, no fence to protect the school premises.

”The teachers don’t have all they need in terms of maintaining discipline, there is an entire gamut of responsibilities that we have as parents.”