UPDATE: Student Who Lost Her Life Due to Water Contamination at Queens College Laid to Rest + Ministry of Education Takes Blame for Ongoing Epidemic

14-year-old Praise Sodipo, who was the last pupil to pass away following the Queen’s College water contamination saga, has been buried at Atan Cemetery, Yaba, Lagos State. Representatives of the school’s management, colleagues, family and friends were there to pay their last respects to the deceased.

PUNCH Metro also reports that the Federal Ministry of Education finally took blame for the death of the three pupils of the school, saying that it could have been prevented if proactive steps were taken. The Director of Basic and Secondary Education in the Federal Ministry of Education, Jonathan Mbaka, revealed earlier in the week in an interview that his team had inspected the school prior to the outbreak.

“I must confess that there were lapses in the ministry concerning the report filed by the Education Quality Assurance team. The report was submitted to the directorate of that ministry. But the directorate didn’t pass the report to other departments for action. They just kept it in the office. Unfortunately, it was this week that I was able to get access to that report. It is a little lapse on our part. But it is a procedural issue and when procedure has existed for too long, to change it becomes an issue. No one expected such to happen; other reports had been kept like that and nothing happened. The challenge we had was that the facts were not coming to us. I can inform you that I have visited the school three times. When I visited the school, I postponed the resumption for two weeks when I saw what was on ground. We have discovered that there is a failure in the system. This has opened our eyes to a lot of things. And we have agreed that after this issue, we will visit each of the unity schools for assessment. With this, I believe that we will not have a repeat of such,” he said.

The late student’s guardian, Lawrence Otun, told reporters sadly that Praise was only eight when she lost both parents who were ministers at RCCG. She got into Queen’s College four years ago, having received admission from Osun State. He expressed great sadness as he watched her remains being buried.

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Mallam Adamu Adamu, the Minister of Education, condoled with families of the victims, saying the government was addressing the problem. He urged pupils to come from home during their examination, adding that the school would soon resume normal academic activities.