Delta: Academic Activities Grounded At Indian-owned DSC Schools

From Joseph Obukata, Warri

Academic activities were grounded on Monday at the three private schools operated by Indian-owned Premium Steel and Mines Limited (PSML), operators of the Delta Steel Company in Ovwian-Aladja, Delta State.

Daily Sun gathered that the schools were closed down by striking workers on Monday following three years of unsettled issues of poor salary and promotion of teaching and non teaching staff.

The schools namely DSC Model Primary and Nursery School 1 and School 3 as well as the Technical High School were affected by the temporary strike action.

It was gathered that students of the Technical High School, DSC school 1 and School 3 who resumed school Monday morning, were left unattended to by teachers who were said to have gone into meeting for close to six hours.

Sources said that the strike action started last week Friday as the pupils of the primary and Nursery School and students of Technical High School, were also not taught last week Friday.

Our correspondent reports that the pupils and students, resorted to playing around the school fields throughout the day as no teacher was on sight to attend to them.

Many parents who thronged the densely populated schools between 2:pm and 4:pm to pick their children and wards, were disappointed to hear that there was no academy activities in the schools as the schools had gone on temporary strike action.

Some of the teachers who spoke to our correspondent anonymously, said that a 48 hours ultimatum has been given to the company’s management to address the demands of the staff.

They blamed the Indian management of the steel company for the academic disruption of their second term academy activities.

They expressed dismay over the nonchalant attitude of the management of the company to tackle the issues, saying for three years running the management have refused to discuss the poor working condition of staff including issues concerning staff salary scale and promotion that had been advanced before them.

Efforts to get comment from either the school management or Premium Steel Company as of press time proved abortive.

(Report, excluding headline; Daily Sun)