•Report reveals parlous state of public schools in Okposi
From Uchenna Inya, Abakaliki
The people of Okposi, Ohaozara Local Government, Ebonyi State, are among those who acquired western education early. The community has recorded enormous growth in human development, with intellectuals and well-to-do-individuals who impacted on lives in the community and beyond.
In 1965, one of the three pioneer unity schools in Nigeria was located in Okposi. The others are in Warri and Sokoto. The community also has one of the most popular secondary schools in the state, Government Secondary School, Okposi (GSSO), established in 1976.
Presently, there are nine other public and six private secondary schools in Okposi. The community also has 24 public and six private primary schools, respectively, according to data released by Okposi Education Initiative (OEI).
Unfortunately, most of the schools are now ghosts of themselves, lacking basic amenities that enhance teaching and learning. This has contributed to the falling standard of education in the community.
This prompted OEI to host an education summit on November 12, 2024, with the theme “Developing Okposi through high quality education.” The event attracted indigenes of the community from different fields of endeavour, especially the education sector.
South East bureau chief of The Sun, Nze Magnus Eze, who chaired the summit, lamented that schools in many areas, Okposi inclusive, lacked basic amenities that enhance quality education: “We know that you cannot work without data, it’s very important. So, this august body has been able to mine data in the primary and secondary education sector.
“An NGO led by an education enthusiast, Ewa Otu Eleri, from Afikpo, in Afikpo Local Government, was able to release findings of its study across the schools within the basic education sector in Ebonyi State.
“As a journalist, we took time to go back to what they had done, visited these schools. It took us about six months to do our own validation and reassessment of what they put out. What we saw was quite stunning, shocking; it was heartrending.
“You already know that our schools don’t have toilets, you know that they don’t have water too. That brings up the issue of sanitation. Today, we are lucky to be in a model primary school and that is why we are in a building like this.
“Outside here, you see pupils sitting and learning under mango trees in some schools. You see malnourished children sitting on the bare floor in dusty environment, learning. In fact, Otu Eleri’s group’s report had described some primary schools in Ebonyi as poultry farms.”
Secretary, Ebonyi State Chapter of All Nigeria Confederation of Principals of Secondary Schools (ANCOPPS), Martin Ngene, who delivered the keynote speech, said education was the bedrock of societal development. He argued that future growth, development and innovations in society depend largely on the level of education in that society.
He maintained that, if the society must survive, educational standard must be solid and high. He commended the organisers of the summit and urged them to do more to revamp the cause of the decay in education in Okposi: “The teaching standard that we have in secondary schools is nothing. What we have in primary schools is even better. The problem we have in primary schools is that most of the teachers do not have the content to deliver to the children.
“So, delivering is something else. When you come to JS1 and see those that come from primary school into JS1, you will cry because most of them cannot write their names, and that is our problem.
“We have teachers, yes, but are they really teaching? No. Of course, you cannot give what you don’t have. Recently, the Secondary Education Board conducted interview to recruit 1,000 teachers. I understand that close to 14,000 persons wrote that exam, I equally know that before the exam, there will be lists from our political heads.
“This list will come from the governor; the other list will come from the wife. One will come from the deputy governor, we have list from the Chief of Staff, list from the Principal Secretary, list from the Deputy Principal Secretary, you have the list from the Head of Service, you have the list from the commissioners, you have the list from the permanent secretaries and all that.
“At the end of the day, you will now see that most of the persons that would have been employed on merit would lose the positions into the hands of political leaders. I have always quarrelled with giving political appointments in the name of teachers to their boys.
“The worst people that we have in our system are the people employed in 2014. They didn’t come to teach because they did not come as teachers; they came as boys of their god-fathers. It helped in the decay of the system.
“You can pick up projects and run for us. You can visit some schools and do need assessment and see where you can be of help. After all, the children are our brothers and sisters. You can do well to have strong viable old students’ association that will give back to their alma mater. You can do well to motivate our teachers.
“I have always said that the nonchalance of our teachers is not because they are not paid heavy salary. I want to ask our principals to please pick up, encourage our teachers, motivate your teachers.”
Secretary, Ohaozara Local Education Authority, Mrs. Gloria Chima, lamented that public schools were dying and blamed parents’ bias for enrolling their children in private schools instead of the public schools.
She implored communities to make public schools in their areas better: “This gathering could have been a very large one to educate our people on issues regarding public schools. Our public schools in Ohaozara LG are going down.
“Parents enrol their children in private schools rather than public schools. This is why we have to tell them the importance of these public schools. All hands must be on deck to make our schools better. Communities should know that they are owners of these schools. They should help to make these schools better.”
Educationalist and traditional ruler of Okposi Okwu Autonomous Community, Onyibe Chuku Agwu, enjoined retired teachers to identify with OEI “because they have the fundamental tasks to perform to wriggle out of the abysmal conditions of schools in the community.”
A development expert and former president, OEI, Dr. Laz Ude Eze, said the community cannot develop if parents continued to enrol their children in private schools or good public schools in other places and allow the schools in the community to continue to deteriorate.