In Ebonyi: Students kick against sack of 83 lecturers

"The money our parents have spent from our first year to our final year would now be fruitless," the students said.

Students of the Ebonyi State College of Education at Ikwo have decried the decision of the state governor Governor Dave Umahi to dismiss 83 lecturers of the institution.

The lecturers were reportedly disengaged, following the governor’s directive when he received the report of a committee set up to investigate the institution’s administration, which was said to have uncovered irregularities in the school.

Speaking to TheNation, some of the students said that the sack of the lecturers might cause over six departments of the school to be shut down by the National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE).

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A final year student in the Department of Primary Education, Miss Ifeoma Obinwa, regretted that the department was left with five lecturers while the minimum requirement for the department was eight lecturers.

She said: “The governor’s directive, which led to the sack of the lecturers, does not just affect the lecturers. The students and parents, who have their wards in the affected departments, are the most hit because when the departments are shutdown, we have no other option than to either start looking for admission in other tertiary institution, as Year One students, or we would turn out as dropouts.

“That’s not all. The money our parents have spent from our first year to our final year would now be fruitless. How many of them would survive the shock of getting to hear that their children, who were in their final year, have become dropouts for no fault of theirs?

“Even if a department meets up with the required eight lecturers, the school’s prerequisite to establishing the Primary Education Department is now left with only one teacher. This would automatically mean a shutdown by NCCE.”