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•Govt wields big stick, seals over 72 decrepit structures in 5 LGAs
From Wilson Okereke, Afikpo
•Another church used as school
Executive director, Technology for Transformative Development Foundation (TTD), Ewah Otu Eleri, whose organisation, with the sponsorship of USAID, had done extensive work in the education sector in Ebonyi State, recently told Daily Sun that some schools in the state were like poultry farms.
•Poultry farm-like school
If he made the observation about public schools, the case is worse with their private counterparts where people even turned uncompleted, abandoned and dilapidated structures to schools.
Teaching and learning ought to take place in a good atmosphere. But findings in many places in Ebonyi State showed that anywhere could serve as school environment, especially in the rural areas. This is why there are substandard schools in the state.
The situation has forced the state government to wield the big stick by sealing over 72 of them in five local government areas while intensifying efforts to do the same in the remaining eight local governments.
•Eyesore called school in Ebonyi
Successive administrations in the state have waged war against the ugly trend but it has persisted and become a threat to the educational sector.
Worried by the rising number of illegal and substandard schools across the state, Governor Francis Nwifuru set up a task force that is visiting all the communities in the state.
The task force has his Senior Special Assistant on Secondary Education, Peter Nwogbaga, and Special Assistant on Primary Education, Ifeoma Agwu, as leaders. The task force is also to ensure that schools meet standards before being established in the state.
The task force has been identifying substandard schools and sealed over 72 of such schools in the state. About 26 of them were closed in Ezza South LGA alone.
The schools were operating in church halls, farms, uncompleted buildings and other non-conducive environments. The taskforce, after sealing the schools, arrested their proprietors for contravening the law on establishment of schools in Ebonyi.
The treasurer of the National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools (NAPPS), Sunday Agbo, commended Nwifuru’s efforts in bringing sanity to the school structure in the state.
“NAPPS doesn’t tolerate nonsense; we don’t condone illegality and anything that will affect our children, who are our future leaders. This is why we are supporting what our governor is doing in the education sector. We want sanity in the education sector.
“Before you begin to operate any school, there are certain things you must put in place: you must have a very conducive environment where teaching and learning can take place decently.
“Many people meet up these conditions and open their schools and their schools are doing well, while some cut corners, as we can see in the structures they are operating in.
“We can see the type of structures that our children are learning under. These are some of the things we frown at and that’s why we are supporting the state government to sanitize the system. We are fully supporting our governor because Ebonyi belongs to all of us,” he said.
Nwogbaga expressed displeasure over the rising number of Illegal and substandard schools in Ebonyi State. He regretted that churches are not helping matters as, according to him, they have turned every available space in church premises, including church halls into class rooms for school activities.
He declared that schools in the church halls were permanently sealed and called on church leaders who wish to run private schools to obtain land site and proceed to the state Ministry of Education for necessary approvals.
He condemned the attitude of establishing private schools in places such as uncompleted building, animal farms and church halls, and emphasized that the committee would visit every community in the state to close schools operating illegally.
Nwogbaga called on proprietors of the unapproved private schools to identify with the Ministry of Education officials to guide them on how to establish standard schools and get approvals.
“What we are seeing in private schools in our state is an eyesore. How can you be teaching our future leaders in structures that animals are supposed to live in? Why should our children be subjected to this condition in the name of teaching? We can’t allow this to continue in our state, we can’t.
“We will go round the communities and, anywhere we see any illegal and substandard school, we will not hesitate to close such school. The guidelines for opening schools must be adhered to strictly. We can’t compromise our educational standard,” Nwogbaga stated in Onueke, the headquarters of Ezza South LGA of the state, where many substandard schools were sealed by the state government.
On her part, Agwu said it was wrong to keep children under trees and unapproved structures in the name of ‘schools’ and vowed that unapproved schools in the state would be shut down to sanitize the system.
According to her, the governor has education as a priority and would not like any Ebonyi child to be subjected to poor learning environment.
The Director, Quality Assurance, Ministry of Education in the state, Torny Ngwuta, said the purpose of the exercise was to sanitize private school system and ensure quality. He appealed to proprietors to comply with the taskforce on substandard school for better education.
Some of the proprietors of the schools sealed, including Shalom Nursery and Primary School, Cathedral Methodist Nursery and Primary School, Holy Family Nursery and Primary school, Christian Child Nursery and Primary School, among others, claimed that their headquarters had secured approvals for them to run schools on their church premises.
While private schools are being sealed by the state government for being substandard, public schools are severely challenged by absenteeism, truancy and other problems.
Recently, the Secondary Education Board (SEB) in the state monitored secondary schools across the state and discovered poor attendance of teachers to schools. During the school supervision, the number of teachers found on their duty posts was very discouraging.
“Last week, we went on monitoring and I must confess that what we saw across the state were quite discouraging.
“In most of the schools visited, more than 60 per cent of the teachers were not in attendance. Many did not write lesson notes, while those written were not marked. Diaries and class registers were not updated, among other deficiencies that can adversely affect effective teaching and learning. This is not acceptable.
“It has to be noted that observing such aspects of the job constitutes practical evidence of our commitment to duty, and vice-versa,” chairman of the board, Mrs. Lilian Nwankwo stated.
