Cross River State Commissioner for Education, Stephen Odey, has debunked claims in some quarters that the list of Cross River State indigenes submitted by school principals was not padded.
According to Odey, the Cross River State Governor has volunteered to pay for all indegenous students of Senior Secondary School writing West African Examination Council (WAEC) for 2024.
In line with the directives from the Governor some principals submitted list of both indigenous and non-indigenes while some duplicated names leading to the commissioner setting up a Diciplinenary Committee.
The Committee found out that 31 principals were culpable and should be suspended, and six were exonerated from the offence.
The commissioner stated this on Monday during a press conference in his office in Calabar.
Odey also promised to clampdown on all illegal schools operated by people who don’t have the capacity to run schools in the state, saying, “We will go after them, we will closed them down because they don’t have the capacity to run schools.”
He said due to the lean resources available to the state government and because of the shortage of teachers, he has sought approval of the governor for the employment of 6,000 teachers across the state.
He said his mission in the Ministry of Education is to identify the problem and profer solution to it.
