When regulation becomes a spectacle, learning stops.
A viral video showed Imo’s Education Commissioner, Prof. Bernard Ikegwuoha, at the Claret Academy, Owerri questioning pupils kneeling as punishment. “Why are these kids kneeling?” he asked, declaring he had abolished “corporate punishment” in schools. Before teachers could explain, he ordered students to stand and go home.
“Today is a public holiday; everybody go home,” he announced, shutting the school without reference to any official calendar or legal authority.
Beyond the viral moment, the incident reopened hard questions about governance in Imo: how discipline should be enforced, what regulatory process looks like, and why a commissioner’s camera became the tool of oversight. It also exposed a deeper contradiction — aggressive intervention at a structured private school while public schools across the state still battle leaky roofs, no furniture, and teacher shortages despite N159bn budgeted since 2020.
The kneeling stopped. The questions didn’t.
The
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