Following an expose published by The Nation in February on decay infrastructure in public schools in Abia, Ebonyi and Cross Rivers states, the commissioners of education in the affected states rose swiftly in defence of their principals, enumerating the steps they said were being taken to remedy the situation and improve the learning conditions of pupils. INNOCENT DURU revisited the states 10 months after the publication and reports that improvements in the conditions of most of the schools were hardly noticeable in spite of intervention claims by the state governments.
Anyone who had read the claims made by the commissioners of education in Cross River, Ebonyi and Abia states about what their various governors were doing to arrest the infrastructural decay in public schools in their domains would have no reason to doubt that better days had come for the pupils and their teachers. Their claims, contained in our report titled Eyesore: Deplorable State of Public Schools in Abia, Ebonyi and Cross River, were as assuring as they are convincing.
For example, in the said report, the Cross River State Commissioner for Education, Mr Goddy Ettah, had reeled out the state government’s achievements in the education sector and its avowed commitment to transforming public education in the state when our correspondent drew his attention to the deplorable learning conditions in some schools in Ababene, a suburb of Obubra Local Government Area of the state.
He said: “Contracts have just been awarded as an intervention to improve the infrastructure in our public primary schools. We have increased our monitoring and supervision. We have also improved security in our schools.
“Recently, a team from Canada came to conduct a need assessment to enable the state government know where to intervene. You don’t intervene in a problem you don’t know. You need to know the problem.”
However, a fresh visit to one of the schools, Community Primary School V, Ababene, left much to be desired. Rather than improve, the learning conditions in the school appeared to have worsened. Checks conducted by our correspondent revealed that all the dilapidated buildings in the school remained unattended to, with many of the pupils still learning under a mango tree the headmaster also used as an offices.
Capturing the situation in a tone of innocence, one of the pupils said: “Sun comes here. Rain comes here. Ants are here and they bite our bumbum (bums), our hands and our legs. Some of them enter (into) our bodies (dresses) and bite us. No toilet here. I always run home to pooh.”
Corroborating the pupil’s claims, a teacher in the school said: “What the pupil said is an understatement. The condition here is worse. The shade provided by the mango tree is what the children and the headmaster use as classroom and office because there are classrooms not to talk of offices. As you can see, we spread mats under the tree for the pupils to sit on. Lessons come to an end the moment rain begins to fall. The children would not even wait for you to tell them to go before they start running home.
“The pupils in the few available classrooms are also not spared of the discomfort, because the roofs are leaking and there are no windows or doors to shield them. At times, they run into neigbours’ houses when it is raining. Now the hamattan season is approaching, but this is how they will still be exposed to the harsh weather conditions.
“You can see the children kept in the dilapidated building covered with palm fronds; in what way are they better than the ones learning under the mango tree? We are learning under the most inhuman conditions here.
“After your (initial) report, we had thought that they would come and rehabilitate the classrooms. But it appears that all the promises made by the commissioner in the report were mere propaganda. They probably did not know that you would take the pains to come back and check to see whether they did what they promised to do. We commend you for the efforts at making the government responsive and seeking better living conditions for the poor.”
In Ebonyi State, the learning conditions in the schools previously visited by The Nation had also not improved. The Commissioner for Education in the state, Prof John Eke, had in our previous report debunked the claim that the state government appeared insensitive to the situations in the state’s public schools, saying that the state government had never rested on its oars in its quest to make public schools attractive to pupils and their parents.
According to him, “the government of Ebonyi State has renovated more than 100 schools. We constructed and distributed 50, 000 furniture for the children. We have also transformed blackboards to whiteboards. The project to supply furniture was launched three days ago. As I am speaking with you, they are being distributed to every school.”
He added: “The government has spent N1.7 billion on renovation. We have intervention fund from the Universal Basic Education Commission. Past administrations could not access it because of counterpart funding. While we are renovating and building new ones, we are also setting up some schools.”
However, our correspondent’s revisit last week to Central Urban School 1 and 2 as well as Urban Community School 1 and 2, which are located very close to the Government House, invalidated the commissioner’s claims.
There was no trace of new or rehabilitated building in the premises of the two schools. Rather, the compounds were littered with dilapidated buildings which have been totally abandoned by the teachers and pupils.
Following the challenge of lack of classrooms, many pupils in different classes at Central Urban Primary School 1 and 2 are now merged and made to learn in a single classroom that has no door, window or ceiling.
An aggrieved teacher who conducted our correspondent round the school said: “This is Primary 6A and B. There are about 80 pupils in this small classroom. Imagine having keeping that number in this stuffy condition. As you can see, the classroom has no ceiling and the roof is very low. This makes the heat generated by the sun to come very hard on the pupils as well as their teachers.
“There is no weather condition that is good for the pupils in this kind of setting. When rain falls, it comes in and disturbs them because there are no windows or doors. When the sun shines, the heat is unbearable. That is the terrible condition we have found ourselves in.”
Another teacher in the school said: “We have abandoned many of the classrooms because they are dilapidated. There are times snakes come out from the abandoned buildings, causing serious panic all over the place. To make matters worse there is no toilet in the school. The pupils urinate or defecate around the dilapidated structures where snakes have at various times been found. As teachers, we always beg neighbours to allow us to use their toilets when we are pressed.”
It was also a sordid tale at Urban Community School 1 and 2 where a long stretch of dilapidated classroom that was being managed when The Nation visited in February had been completely abandoned.
“We have locked it up because it is no longer safe for the pupils and teachers to stay there. We have complained and written series of petitions without any positive response. We have had to contribute money to repair the headmistress’ office when it was leaking,” a teacher remarked.
Public schools in Abia State are also not exempted from the dearth of infrastructure in schools. The Commissioner for Education, Prof Ikechi Mgbeoji, had admitted in our previous report that some schools in parts of the state were in bad conditions, but assured that the government was frantically addressing the situation.
But there was not much seen to justify the assertion in respect of providing furniture for the pupils and rehabilitating their dilapidated structures. A revisit, last week, to Amaisii Community Primary School in Umuokpo area of Obingwa Local Government Area was revealing. The pupils were found sitting on the ground like destitute while lecture was going on.
One of the pupils who gave her name simply as Blessing said: “It is a huge challenge learning in this condition. We are never clean because we sit on the ground. Our books are also permanently dirty because of this. We are constantly suffering from cough and catarrh. We don’t like it at all.”
Government’s seeming apathy to public school education was also evident at Owoahiafor Comprehensive Senior Secondary School in Obingwa Local Government Area. The premises were grossly unkempt with all the buildings except a new one under construction falling apart.
Controversy trails state governments’ claim of intervention
It was learnt that shortly after our report in February, the Cross River State Government supplied 50 chairs and 50 tables to Community Primary School V, Ababene. But laudable as the gesture was, checks revealed that absence of decent classrooms in the school compelled the pupils to carry the chairs and tables allocated to them home after school hours every day and taking them back to school the following morning. The development, according to the pupils, is burdensome.
“It is not easy to carry the chairs and tables home every day. It weakens us, but no matter how weak or sick we are, we still have to carry them. If we don’t, we would sit on the floor for lessons. If we had good buildings, we would not be doing this,” a pupil who gave his name as Emma said.
Another controversy trailing the supplied furniture is the inscription Cross River SUBEB UBEC 2012-2015 Intervention on them. The question being asked among the people is why the state government is giving out furniture marked 2012-2015 intervention project to schools in 2017, and what had happened to the money the commissioner told our correspondent in February was earmarked for rehabilitation of primary schools in the state.
A parent, who gave his name as Ofat, said: “Something is fishy. Our children have been sitting on bare floor until you published that report. Many are still without furniture till today. Does it mean they had these pieces of furniture but deliberately did not give them to our children? It is unfortunate. This is wickedness of man by his fellow man.”
In Ebonyi, hordes of pupils still sit on bare floor despite the commissioner’s claim in February that pieces of school furniture were flying all over the state. The project gladly trumpeted by the education commissioner is also enmeshed in controversy. Some of the teachers who spoke with The Nation condemned the quality of the furniture, describing it as a waste of resources.
A teacher at Central Urban Primary School 1 and 2 said: “The chairs and tables are not strong, and that is why we gave them to the nursery pupils. If the grown up pupils sit on them, they would collapse very soon. It is the benches and desks provided by adult education students that we gave to the grown up students. If you check the two, you will see a huge difference.
“What the government did is a waste of resources. It would be good if they tell us how much each of the chairs and tables cost and the total sum spent on the project.
“A good number of the pupils are still sitting on bare floor. Many of the pupils have seats today because many are absent. If all the pupils were around, you would see so many of them on the floor. So many teachers don’t even have chairs and tables. We use our laps as tables when writing.”
Contrary to the commissioner’s claim in the previous report that 50,000 pieces of furniture were distributed, the teacher said each school got only 15 chairs and 15 tables, wondering how 15 chairs per school to less than 2,000 schools would equal 50,000.
“Fifty thousand pieces of furniture in 15 places would mean that more than 3, 300 schools got the supply. We don’t have that number of primary schools in Ebonyi State. So, that claim is a lie from the pit of hell,” a teacher said.
The Nation’s visit to Abia State revealed that the state government had begun to construct new buildings in some of the schools mentioned in our earlier report. Construction of new buildings and renovation of one old structure was observed at Alaukwu Secondary School located in Umuobiakwa, the hometown of the incumbent governor, Dr Okezie Ikpeazu while a newly constructed bungalow was sighted at Owoahiafor Comprehensive Senior Secondary School in Obingwa Local Government Area.
Some parents who spoke with our correspondent decried the construction of new classrooms, particularly in Owahiafor Comprehensive Secondary School which has so many uncompleted or dilapidated structures.
“What is the need for a new building when there are so many in the school that are not in use? There are many school buildings that were started in other places that have not been completed till now. Instead of spending scarce resources building new structures, it would have been better to use the funds to renovate the existing ones and equip them with furniture and other materials that would enhance learning. This is self-aggrandisement and nothing more,” a parent, Fidelis Eze, said.
We’ve renovated more schools than other states in Nigeria- Ebonyi
In spite of the observed rot in some of the schools visited in Ebonyi, the Commissioner for Education, Prof John Eke, said the state stands head and shoulders above other states in the area in terms of renovating schools.
Eke, who told our reporter in February that the state was ready to distribute 50, 000 pieces of furniture, said: “We have distributed over 20, 223 furniture for a start. That is what I have on my record. We are doing another one. Even if it is 1,000 that we distributed, it is better than nothing.
“You are talking like somebody who is not in Ebonyi. We are doing the highest number of renovation in the country as I speak to you. We have done so much more than any other state.”
When our correspondent informed the commissioner that he had visited some of the schools in the state, he said: “My brother, we have 1,666 primary schools. So, if we have done about 200 within a very short period, it is significant. We have budgeted some to be done next year. We are doing it on local government basis. That St Theresa you mentioned is newly allocated. If you go to rural areas, you will see renovations coming up.”
Efforts made to speak with the Cross River State Commissioner for Education, Mr. Goddy Eta, were unsuccessful as he neither answered his calls nor replied to a text message our correspondent sent to his mobile phone.
The Commissioner for Information, Mrs Rosemary Archibong, who later spoke with our correspondent, said: “The government is set to rehabilitate schools, and we cannot do all of them at the same time. As at now, over 270 schools have been taken up by SUBEB for rehabilitation. Out of that over 100 have been completed and returned. The school in Ababene will also be visited.”
On the furniture bearing 2012 -2015, the commissioner said: “Not all the money that was meant for that period was accessed. What this government did was that the money for a particular period that we have been able to get, we must inscribe the particular year the fund was meant for on the project. This is for accountability sake.”
Abia State Commissioner for Education, Prof Ikechi Mgbeoji’s line could not be reached, but our correspondent was able to reach out to the Chief Press Secretary to the governor, Appollos Enyinnaya.
Explaining why the state was building new structures where many dilapidated and uncompleted buildings abound, Enyinnaya said: “Government’s idea is that you have a complete school. Some people might see one, two, three buildings in a school and feel they don’t need another building but such people don’t know the population of the schools. They don’t know the new policy of the ministry, which could be to have 12 students per classroom so that the teachers can have ample time to attend to the pupils.
“All the schools we are building and renovating now will have furniture when the work is completed. You don’t put chairs in an open space. A schools is not just the structures that you have there; it is made up of every other component like quality teachers.
“We have a partnership with some Australian organisations to train our secondary school teachers.”