ABUJA – The Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) on Friday in Abuja called on the Federal Government to impose sanctions on parents who failed to send their children to school.
NUT Secretary-General Ikpe Obong, who made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), said the sanctions would serve as a deterrent to others who might toe the same line.
Obong said that the sanctions had been embedded in the National Policy on Education but wondered why it was not being implemented in the country.
“The national policy on education has provided for sanctions for parents who release their children to hawk, to do other things when those children are of school age.
“So the government has not made conscious efforts to implement those sanctions.
“In other words, such children are supposed to be arrested under the provision of the law and the parents found out and prosecuted.
“So that it will now serve as a deterrent to other parents to now allow their children to go to school,” he said.
He said it was mandatory and compulsory for every parent to send their children to school based on the federal government transformation agenda.
Obong called on the government to enforce such sanctions in order to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) target on education for all.
He added that government should be able to use its own educational parastatal agencies at state and federal levels to ensure that the policy on children under school age was implemented.
“That means arresting of such children will be to fish out the parents and show them what they deserve to be shown.
“We believe that once such is done, we can send out signals to other parents to ensure that the children go to school.
“Within the shortest possible time, you will see that every child will be in the school, ‘’he added. (NAN)