No inkling where the fast moving convoy was headed early that morning. None of the aides was cock sure about the mission either. This was not out of place for an administration dogged by surprises.
In what seems to have underscored the style of Comrade Adams Oshiomhole as Edo State helmsman, his hectic site inspection schedules will catch even his sentry panting. It could either be late into the night or span into the small hours of the morning depending on his fancy.
Suddenly his convoy screeched to a stop at the expansive New Era Girls’ School along Mission Road in the heart of Benin City. Alighting from his car, Baba Oshio as the governor is fondly called was stern and brisk, some signal that something was amiss.
He barely had time to acknowledge cheers and pleasantries from the principal and other senior teachers before hopping into one of the classes. Like a school master, he was soon immersed in the task of engaging the pupils.
His hunch paid off as one of the female students tinged his ears: “our teachers are usually not around to teach us”. A bemused Oshiomhole had gotten the lead into what he smelt was a rot that had taken over public schools in the state despite the huge intervention by his administration to rehabilitate them. His inquiry into the staff attendance notebook further stirred the hornet’s nets. Many teachers are just being paid without offering any service.
Not giving to hearsay, the comrade governor paid more impromptu fact finding visits to some other public schools within the state capital. What he found was most disturbing. He decided to wield the big stick by sacking 20 teachers with immediate effect. The affected teachers, he found out, no longer performed their legitimate responsibility to either the state government that pays their monthly salaries or the children they are paid to mentor.
Barely a week later, the governor continued with his unscheduled visits to some more public schools, including others he visited earlier. The result was a can of worms. Apart from discovering that a vice principal was a perpetual truant, he found out that the Zonal Chief Inspectors of Education, ZCIE, and Chief Inspectors of Education, CIE, whose responsibility it was to monitor and ensure that head teachers and teachers live up to their responsibilities, were simply non challant. They were equally relieved of their jobs to send a clear message that this matter would no longer be treated with kid gloves..
As the comrade governor puts it, “If I find the courage to collect taxes, I have to find the courage to ensure that those who are beneficiaries of the tax payer’s money also render corresponding services. I have a duty to remind you that when you abandon your job, you also lose it.”
Upon his re-election recently, Oshiomhole made it clear that as part of his promise to the people to rebuild the state, his major policy thrust this time around would centre on the need to pay more attention to human capital development. His reasoning is premised on the belief that human capital is the most important element required in the race towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals, MDGs.
The comrade governor was emphatic that his administration would insist on removing any obstacle on its way of rejuvenating the education sector such that his administration would wield the big stick if it realizes for instance that teachers and all those given the responsibility of ensuring that the investment in the sector are not living up to their assigned duties.
“My promise to Edo people is that we are rebuilding the state. And human capital development is the most important element. But our investment in schools would be useless if our teachers are not doing their jobs properly. It is worse if those that should help to ensure that people are teaching are not doing their jobs.”
Equally startling was the antics of the absentee teachers. Oshiomhole found out that teachers did not only absented themselves from their duty posts as an on-going practice but connived with some of their colleagues to mark their names as regularly present on the attendance register.
Beyond the dereliction of duty by the teachers, the comrade governor’s unscheduled visit also unearthed another issue. On assumption of office, he made it imperative that regularly teachers must be posted to different duty post after having spent a specified number of years in one particular school. However, the policy has been flagrantly abused over the years.
This is sometimes done with the active connivance with officials of the State Universal Basic Education Board, SUBEB, and State Primary Education Board, SPEB. For instance, some teachers are said to be in one location for well over 12 years while some that have been posted out of one school found their way back within three months.
Investigations also indicate that there are more reasons why the Oshiomhole administration must beam more search light on the sector. As part of efforts to recoup losses incurred from the no fee policy of the state government, school teachers, backed by principals and other officials have since device other means.
One of them is to source potential students and particularly candidates for both SSCE and NECO. While regular students so sourced are meant to pay for as much as N7,500 to cover sundry requirements including school uniforms, every graduating pupil or student is made to pay between N2,500 and N5,000 to collect testimonials, certificates and other relevant documents.
Often times, most classes in the affected schools are crowded, making genuine teaching and learning processes virtually impossible. These monies are shared among those who sourced the students and other relevant school officials. The students are later enrolled for either SSCE, NECO or both and made to cough out fees ranging from N2,500 to N10,000.
Indeed, putting an end to the development is necessary if the Oshiomhole administration is determined, as it has shown, to put a new lease of life to the education sector. In other words, there is need to deal decisively with erring officials in order to ensure that state policies, including those affecting the education sector are implemented to the letter.
In particular, it seems obvious that a number of teachers and other school officials under the employment of the state government are yet to appreciate the responsibility they owe both their employer state and children whose lives are virtually in their hands to mould.
The situation is made more pathetic as the teachers appear not to understand the need for them to show a commensurate appreciation of the better remunerations which they now enjoy over regular civil servants in the state.
If they do, they ought to appreciate such gesture by increasing their productivity in order that the state government can make real progress in its avowed determination to focus more attention on human capital development.
Above all, there is the need for the administration to constantly remind them that they are under oath to live by the spirit of every policy of the state government, their employer, in order to at least justify the salaries they receive at the end of every month. This will serve as a reminder to everyone that much is expected of whom much is given.
Certainly, they cannot be committed to the past where the education sector deteriorated so badly that even the poor removed their children and wards from public schools.
They are poles apart and must never mix. Therefore, those teachers and other state officials who appeared to be consigned to that past should be shown the way out of service now. The need for the state government to be very firm in this regard cannot be over emphasized.
Over the years, observers have been unanimous on the need to urgently rejuvenate the nation’s education sector. Their position is not unconnected with the decadence the sector has suffered over the last decades which resulted in the rejection of product of the nation’s public schools on the strength that holders of their certificates and degrees cannot, practically speaking, defend the certificates and degrees in their possession.
Unarguably, the malaise has robbed off with great consequences on the sector at the state levels where both primary and secondary schools are always the subject of constant ridicule. In Edo state, the situation was particularly so serious that on his assumption of office, Oshiomhole took time off to study the situation with a view to prescribing relevant solution.
At the moment, appreciable intervention has been made in infrastructure by his administration in public schools in the state, so much so that both public primary and secondary schools which used to be the last resort of the poor are now enjoying a new lease of life as more and more parents and guardians are bringing back their children and wards.
However, it is sad that while Oshiomhole is receiving accolades for a job well done, certain elements appear bent on drawing back the hands of the clock.
