The school authority has reportedly suspended some female students of Oreyo Senior Grammar School, Igbogbo, Ikorodu, Lagos State, seen smoking shisha in a viral video on social media, over the weekend.
The act which was widely condemned by many is said to have led to a move by the Lagos State Government to rehabilitate them.
A cross-section of parents and owners of private schools in the state described the act as a by-product of gross degeneration of societal values in the country and condemned it in its entirety.
They said though parents or guardians were to blame because, according to them, it appeared the parents had failed in their roles to their children or wards, the school and the students themselves have their own share of the blame.
Shisha, according to health experts, contains tobacco mixed sometimes with fruit or molasses and heated with charcoal in a Shisha pipe to create the smoke.
Smokers of Shisha are also at risk of developing heart and circulatory diseases, cancers, nicotine addiction and other health effects like the tobacco smokers.
Speaking on the issue, the Deputy National President of National Parent-Teacher Association of Nigeria (NPTAN) and Southwest Coordinator of the group, Chief Deolu Ogunbanjo and the President of Association for Formidable Education (AFED), Mr Emmanuel Orji and chairman of League of Muslim School Proprietors (LEAMSP), Lagos State chapter, Mr Fatai Raheem, said they were shocked at the viral video.
They said they would not blame the parents alone for the bad behaviour because the students involved may have carried out the act during school hours when their parents would believe they were in the care of school authorities.
They said they could only encourage parents and guardians not to abandon their parental roles to teachers and the school authorities.
They charged especially the public schools to live up to their responsibilities particularly by ensuring that students remain in the school premises during school hours and report students with bad behaviour including absentees to their parents.
They said it was disheartening that some students leave home without getting to school and without parents knowing because they do not bother to visit their children even on open days years round.
Tribuneonline
