From Osaigbovo Iguobaro, Benin
Against the backdrop of mass WAEC failure and the blame on the teachers, Delta state Chapter of the Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT) yesterday absolved teachers of the blame as it said, rather than blaming the teachers who regularly commit their best to teaching, the blame should be leveled on poor parents and government’s attitude to education in the country.
Comrade Jonathan Jemirieyigbe, the state NUT boss in an interview with our correspondent in Asaba, however gave various instances wherein parents have failed in their duties to their children, adding that the result of which has translated to yearly mass failure in the results emanating from West African Examination Council (WAEC) nationwide.
Comrade Jonathan averred that parents responsibility have been jettisoned especially in the care for their children, disclosing that mass failure had remained a fallout of a decayed and failed society where parents fail to monitor their children and give them undue freedom to be exposed to issues which do not have bearing to their academic successes.
According to him, “Mass failure is traceable to society, poor government attitude to education and parents who fail to monitor their children’s activities at home, if a teacher monitors a child for five hours and nothing happens to the child, he goes home, is it from the school the child learns armed robbery or prostitution? Rather, these things are learnt at home”.
The NUT boss however argued that children spend an average of six hours with teachers in the school and 18 hours at home, adding that rather than parents monitoring their academic behavior at home, they rely on the teachers to perform magic, when the children are engrossed in watching African Magic at home.
He said, “How do parents monitor their children at home, asking them questions, what did you learn today? Let me see your notebook? Go and read your books, do we still have parents that do that? Rather, parents allow their children to watch Africa Magic from 8pm to 11pm”.
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