by Rachel Ogbu

Lagos State Government has prohibited the use of accessories, including Hijab, a head scarf for Muslim women in its public schools.

The rules only allow students to wear conventional uniforms to the school except when pupils want to go for prayers, read Qur’an, or attend Friday Jumat service.

Addressing the press on Tuesday, the Commissioner for Education, Olayinka Oladunjoye said that weasring Hijabs to school or any other religious materials was against government’s policy.

“I summoned a stakeholder’s meeting that was chaired by the Commissioner for Home Affairs and Culture, Alhaji Oyinlomo Danmole. The Muslim students were represented at the meeting, Lawyers were represented. We discussed the issue at length and we reached certain agreement,” she said.

“We agreed that students could only use their Hijab when they want to go for prayers, when they want to read Qur’an, and when they are going for Jumat prayer on Fridays.”

“It was agreed that no student should wear Hijab on her uniform. Doing so will cause confusion and break down of the law.”

“Whoever wish that his daughter should be wearing Hijab while going to school and within the school should send such child to a private Muslim school,”

The commissioner, who said the government was committed to overhauling the education sector, added that the administration had spent over N7bn in upgrading the Lagos State University.”

[READ: “Unprofessional and disgrace”- Lagos school principal allegedly flogs student for wearing a hijab ]

The Punch reports:

Oladunjoye added that the government would continue to provide qualitative education “by all means”.

She said various educational development programmes like Eko Project, Support Our Schools Initiative, and specialised development programmes for teachers and administrators in 20 specialised areas, were parts of government programmed to boost education.

She said, “For the teachers and administrators, we are boosting their capacities in areas such as subject mastery, leadership, classroom management, assessment and evaluation, ICT, Basic Accounting and many others.”