Parents of kid hawkers to be punished, says Uduaghan

Nigeria’s Delta State Government has threatened to prosecute any parent or guardian, whose child or ward is found hawking or loitering on the street, during school hours.

Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan announced this at the inauguration of Delta EduMarshal (DEM), a body responsible for arresting school age children who hawk during school hours in Asaba on Monday. Governor Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti state similarly made a similar threat last week, threatening jail to parents who keep their children out of school.

Uduaghan said that the state government was determined to ensure that all school age children were in school, instead of hawking or doing any other thing while others were in school.

He expressed disappointment that eight per cent of school age children in the state were out of school, while the state ran free primary and secondary education.

The governor advised children in the state to resist the urge of going into petty businesses on any illegal act when their mates were school.

He explained that any child arrested by the marshals would be forced back to school, adding that if such a child was arrested twice, the parents would be prosecuted.

Uduaghan said that enough teachers had been deployed to the rural areas to encourage children to benefit from the free education programme of his administration.

He said that government was building and rebuilding school infrastructure, equipping them with modern teaching aids, to enhance teaching and learning in the state.

He said that more teachers would be employed to boost primary and secondary education.

The governor also said that the state had improved the income of parents in the state through its micro-credit scheme.

He commended traditional rulers in the state for their effort in getting school age children back to school.

“Our future can be safe and guaranteed if our children go to school, but if they are illiterate, we live in a dangerous society,” he said.

In her speech, Mrs Stella Blaize, Special Assistant to the Governor on Education Matters, said that the free education policy in the state had become enduring.

Blaize said that no parent or guardian had any moral justification to deny their school age children or wards access to basic and secondary education.

She said that DEM was aimed at ensuring that all residents of school age were in school, and the governor had approved the engagement of qualified people for the execution of the campaign.

The Commissioner for Higher Education, Prof. Hope Eghagha, urged parents to train their children properly, adding that it was compulsory for every child to be educated in Delta.

Eghagha said parents should not turn their children to bread winners of the family by compelling them to hawk during school hours. (NAN)