Ebonyi community moves to revamp rural schools

From Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja

Umuka Community, in Okposi, Ohaozara Local Government Area of Ebonyi State has held an educational summit to fashion out ways of making primary and secondary schools in the community more functional.

The summit, which was organized by the Umuka Progressive Union ( UPU) and held virtually, had eminent sons and daughters from the community, including the village head, Chief Okorie Irem, as participants.

The resource persons, Prof Peter-Jazzy Ezeh,Professor of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), as well as Drs. Okereke John Ugwu and Uche Iburu of the Department of Banking and Finance and Industrial Physics , Ebonyi State University (EBSU), respectively, in their different papers, stressed the need for increased government funding, community involvement amongst others as part of steps to get the schools to function better.

The UPU President General, Elder Emenike Okorie, in his welcome address, expressed concern that quality education was becoming elusive in the two primary schools and one Secondary School in the community.

Okorie explained that the education summit was put together to brainstorm on how to how to improve the schools in the community, as well as ensure that children in the community get the right kind of education that will make more useful to themselves and the community.

He recalled that in the past, the community had an Education Foundation, which worked in concert with the leadership to strengthen education area and opined that the foundation should be resuscitated.

According to him, “Quality education at our grassroots is destroyed. Our brothers and sisters no longer have the privilege that many of us had while attending our community schools. Children now leave school as misfits and illiterates. Some purchase certificates which they cannot defend at JAMB exams or competitive recruitment testing opportunities.

“We are here to generate solutions on how to rescue and reposition Umuka children, and stop them from ending up in the streets of Onitsha, Lagos, PH, and elsewhere as vendors of Gala and other inconsequential items, or remaining at home as disposable political thugs and candidates of cultist groups.

” Going forward, I think we should refresh and reinvigorate the Umuka Educational Foundation with new leadership for greater achievements. Going forward, I think we should also build on today’s online summit by holding a physical educational summit at home in Umuka, which will help to sensitize our people at home on the direction we are going.”