FOR several hours yesterday, students of Anglican High School, Adebayo Area, Ado Ekiti held their principal, Mr. Joel Akinola hostage while protesting against mass failure recorded by SS2 students at the unified mock examination conducted by the Ministry of Education.During the protest, the students paralysed commercial activities in the area for about three hours and smashed the windscreen of a police Hilux Van with registration number NPF 1704C.The students attacked the teachers and the police officers to the extent that the policemen had to seek refuge in the bush before they arrested 11 out of the protesting students.Until now, Ekiti State students were promotedautomatically but that had been cancelled by Governor Kayode Fayemi's administration that introduced the unified examination for the students.The principal revealed that the SS3 students were the masterminds of the protest, adding that 'the SS3 students have been giving us problems after we pasted the names of unsuccessful students in the promotion examination conducted by the ministry on the notice board.'About six police vans containing 30 police officers, led by the Divisional Police Officer of the Okeila Police Station, Mr. Segun Atanda were drafted to the scene to quell the crisis.The Commissioner for Education, Dr Eniola Ajayi, who reacted on behalf of the government, described the protest as unfortunate, adding that the unified promotion examination conducted by the government was the yardstick used in promoting the SS2 students.'Before the examination, we had set a standard that all students must make three passes and three credits before they can be promoted and out of the credits, English and mathematics must be included.'She said further: 'The examination was conducted for all the SS2 students in private and public schools in the state. It is better for them to repeat now than to fail WAEC two or three times. The idea that they should be promoted despite failing the promotion examination will not happen.'Some of the parents who were at the scene of the arrest of the students claimed that their children were innocent and that they did not participate in the protest.They also condemned the school's management for not disclosing to the students before now that they would not be permitted to write the next year's West African Examination Council (WAEC) .Mrs. Grace Ajani, mother of one Kehinde Ajani, a secondary school pupil and one of the arrested students claimed that her child, who was seeking admission into the University of Nigeria Nzukka (UNN) was arrested inside her shop, which was located very close to the scene of the incident.The DPO of Okeila Police Station, who briefed reporters on the incident said that the mass failure of the students caused the protest, saying all of them wanted to get promoted to SS3 and write next year's WAEC despite failing the prescribed examination conducted by the government.'We cannot deal with the students as criminals, because they are teenagers and we had to apply smoke to disperse them. But we are quite appalled because of the level of rascality displayed by secondary school students. We wonder what they will do when they get to the university.'I led my men here to protect the schools from being vandalised and even the lives of the students. Immediately they sighted us, they started throwing stones and sachet water at us and broke the windscreen of our patrol van. It was unfortunate,' he said.
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