From Seyi Tayese, Yenagoa
The Bayelsa State Government has called for the cooperation of private school owners and proprietors to effectively implement its executive order on immunization.
The Deputy Governor, Senator Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo made the call at a meeting with proprietors of private schools at the Golden Tulip Hotel, Onopa, Yenagoa, on Thursday.
According to him, the call had become necessary in view of complaints from immunization teams bordering on resistance and lack of cooperation on the part of some private schools and parents.
The Deputy Governor explained that the executive order which makes immunization compulsory for all pupils in nursery and primary schools in the state “is aimed at promoting wellness as well as fighting against child mortality.”
While debunking unfounded rumours that some class of vaccines were meant to depopulate Africa, Senator Ewhrudjakpo, however, appealed to parents and guardians to always allow their children and wards to be immunized.
He noted that the latest polio vaccine was invented to prevent the spread of a mutated variant of the polio virus which had broken out in about four states in the northern part of the country.
While announcing that the next round of National Immunization Plus Days would be flagged off at the weekend in Yenagoa, the Deputy Governor directed the state ministries of education and health to write to all private schools in respect of government’s policy on immunization.
He equally directed the two ministries and other relevant agencies to form a crack team to monitor the level of compliance in schools, emphasizing that no child should be left out in any immunization campaign.
His words: “This meeting is inevitable and profound; inevitable because we are almost in an emergency. It is profound because it will have far-reaching implications.
“You are very important because as proprietors and teachers, you have overriding influence on our children. Also, as owners of private schools, about 40 percent or thereabouts of pupils who seek education come to you for education.
“Among these are two categories of persons who are of great interest to us. These are children from two to five years and girls under the age of 13. These two sets of persons are of great interest to us because of two programs the world as a whole has developed.
“We have specifically convened this meeting because we have discovered over the years, that some of you are resistant to immunization. You claim and come under the guise to say that the parents did not want their children to be immunized.
“You may also need to acquaint yourselves with the policy of the state government on immunization, backed up by an executive order, that says that no child who doesn’t have an immunization certificate should be admitted into any school in the state. It is a policy of the State Government.”
In their separate remarks, the State Chairman, Association of Private School Owners of Nigeria (APSON), Dr. Janet Ekpefa-Abdullahi and the state Secretary of National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools (NAPPS), Engr. Richard Ugossough, expressed concern that their major challenge comes from parents who do not want their children immunized while at school.
On their part, the Principal of Deeper Life High School in Yenagoa, Dr. Peter Osiki, and Pastor (Mrs) Doris Amos of APSON, appealed to government to write to the various schools through its Ministry of Education as well as inform parents of the immunization policy through radio announcements in both English and the local dialects.
