Wedding crusher: Ambode bans “owambes,” other parties in public schools
Your regular headmistress, headmaster, or principal is not going to love this.
Lagos public schools will no longer play host to “social activities.”
Government schools with space enough to stretch at least one canopy made a fortune renting out those spaces for weddings, burials and what have you.
That business venture is officially over, deputy governor Idiat Oluranti Adebule said, Tuesday.
“The governor (Akinwunmi Ambode) has directed that schools will no longer be used for social activities any longer.
“We want to implore members of the public to report any school that violates this directive and we would ensure that defaulting schools are sanctioned accordingly,” she said.
The is designed to raise the standard of education in the state.
But it will hurt the pocket of public schools who raise considerable funds from renting out their spaces for parties.
Some spaces (including school halls) fetch as much as N150,000 every weekend hosting parties from Thursdays through Sundays.
It could be argued that these funds, probably partly embezzled by the powers that be, don’t get into the coffers of the government.
It could also be argued that public schools use some of the money to take care of some needs for the government don’t provide.
For instance, some schools hire extra teaching and non-teaching hands without putting them on the government’s payroll. They rely on the Parent Teacher Association and other funds (like the ones from parties) to take care of those extra hands.
It could also be argued that parties have nothing to do with education. But those parties don’t hold during school time.
We recall some years back the University of Lagos (UNILAG) stopped renting out its famed Multipurpose Halls for parties because such events create “nonsense value.”
Many Lagos public schools are used for political gatherings which often end in violence. It’s unclear if those gatherings are also now off limits..
