…Curbs water scarcity with treatment plant
By Sam Otti
The Parents Teachers Association (PTA) doles out N3.5m monthly to support the payment of salaries for teachers, cooks security personnel and cleaning contractors at Kings College, Lagos. There have been concerns in many public schools of inadequate teachers, such that the few available staff are left with crushing workload in various classrooms.
To address this shortfall, the PTA, in conjunction with the management of Kings College, employed 32 PTA teachers to bridge the shortfall in the teaching manpower needs of the school at a cost of N42m annually.
The Chairman, Kings College Parents Teachers Association (KCPTA), Chief Emmanuel Oriakhi, who disclosed during a general meeting of the association at the Annex campus of the college, Victoria Island, Lagos, said the association would continue to support the college in its effort to regain its pride. He explained that the number of teachers on PTA payroll has increased to 54 at the last count yet, there was a fresh request to engage 11 more teachers for the school, which has a population of over 3500 students in its two campuses.
“We pray that the political environment stabilizes so that the government will do the needful and engage the 500,000 more teachers they promised”, he said. Oriakhi also led other excited parents to commission a multi-million Naira industrial water treatment plant and solar project that were completed for the college by the Parents Teachers Association (PTA).
He said the problem of water scarcity, which had remained a major challenge at the annex campus, had been solved permanently with the new industrial water treatment plant that purifies water via reverse osmosis. The water plant was handled by EWP Group, Shanhai, China, with the capacity of producing over 48,000 litres of water per day, three times more than the water requirement of the campus. Oriakhi commended the PTA for the successful completion of the solar project, which would reduce the cost of diesel for the school generator.
Despite these laudable achievements, the PTA Chairman said the college still had the challenge of bedbugs in hostels, promising that competent professionals would soon be hired to fumigate all the hostels. Addressing the parents, the Director/Principal, Kings College, Anthony Oluseyi Thomas, said the school spends N400, 000 on diesel every 11 days on the annex campus of the college. He said the power outage in the area lasts as long as three weeks, leaving the school constantly on generators.
In spite of the power failure, the school gets a monthly electricity bill of N600,000 or risk being cut off from the public line. He expressed joy that the solar panel would provide uninterrupted power supply on the campus. He said his administration would make the college student-friendly and retain the pride of the institution as a citadel of excellence. He also assured parents that the hostels would soon be rid of bedbugs, with the ongoing negotiation with competent firms to handle the fumigation exercise.
The Principal said the college has continued to soar higher in academics, noting that three students scored 307, 278 and 276 in the last Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME). According to him, the college also emerged first in the last robotics competition involving over 30 schools in Nigeria, drawn from both private and public. He said the contingent from Kings College would travel to the United States for the International Robotics Competition later this year, if the Federal Ministry of Education approves sponsorship of the trip.
Oluseyi said an estimated cost of N13m was needed for 10 students and two teachers that would travel for the competition and appealed to philanthropists and parents to support the contingent to realize the dream.