Ebonyi State Government Thursday said it has suspended a senior lecturer with the state university over alleged involvement in sexual harassment of students.
Commissioner for Education, Prof. John Eke, who made this known while addressing journalists in Abakaliki, also announced that four principals of secondary schools were demoted for their various offences ranging from absenteeism and other acts inconsistent with their mandate.
He said the ministry was investigating alleged sex scandals rocking schools across the state.
He said the lecturer was placed on indefinite suspension, pending the outcome of the reports of investigation on sex allegations leveled against him.
“We have zero tolerance on sexual harassment on our children. There is a case in the university where a lecturer was suspended and we are investigating the case and the ministry is now working on that,” he said.
The state government also said it would ban teachers who were indicted in examination malpractices for five years from supervising WAEC and other external examinations.
Prof. Eke said the state government had put up various measures to dismantle examination malpractices, describing it as worse than Boko Haram.
He said since assumption of office, his ministry has categorised measures to tackle examination malpractices into short and long term, which he said included banning all the teachers who colluded with students to cheat during internal and external examinations for five years.
The commissioner also said the ministry was conducting examination and competency tests for all teachers in the state to ensure the quality of teaching in the schools across the state within weeks.
He said the examination was to ascertain the quality and competency of the teachers and also ensure aggressive supervision and monitoring.
The commissioner further disclosed that as part of measures to ensure that the state comes up in the WAEC and other examinations, it has made it compulsory that all students in Senior Secondary Schools must pass their internal examinations before they would be allowed to register for any external examinations.