The Osun State government on Friday condemned Thursday’s protests by some secondary school students in Ife, Iwo and Ikire, over their failure to qualify for the state government’s sponsorship for the West African Examination Council-administered senior school certificate examinations.

In a statement by the director, Bureau of Communication and Strategy in the governor’s office, Semiu Okanlawon, the government said it was shameful that students who failed examinations would start vandalising government properties in the name of protests.

The statement noted that the refusal of the government to register them for WAEC was because of their performance, saying it would be “irresponsible to continue to fund examination registrations of students who didn’t demonstrate readiness to pass”.

“The Government of Osun, in the unmistakeable resolve and determination to bring the best out of the students, has said it ‎will henceforth register only final year students for external examination after the conduct of the in-house mock examination.

“Students who fail to demonstrate their potential success at the final examination by scoring credits in at least four subjects will not be paid for by the government.
“Any parent who wants to gamble can register their children,” he said.

‎The statement said it was a verifiable fact that Osun State under Mr. Aregbesola had turned around the education sector with the provision of a conducive environment, building of the state- of-the-art schools and the investment in training and retraining of teachers.
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It noted that the government expected ‎significant improvement in the average performance of its registered students in both WASCE and National Examination Council against the backdrop of the huge investments in education.

“It is this decision of government that some disgruntled few among the students ‎went to the streets to protest against in Ile-Ife and Iwo,” the statement added.