Bayelsa State Governor Seriake Dickson comes under the searchlight over his inaugural promise to turn around the state’s education sector, writes Mike Odiegwu
In his inaugural speech in 2012, Bayelsa State Governor Seriake Dickson made education a major thrust of his administration. Without mincing words, he declared a state of emergency in the educational sector.
In fact, before the declaration, there were disturbing concerns in the state’s educational sector. Infrastructural decay and institutional neglect were the order of the day. Many school buildings were dilapidated and most communities could not boast of primary and secondary school structures. It was common to see pupils and students sitting on decrepit bare floors to receive tutorials from few demotivated teachers.
Indeed, Bayelsa was rated low in educational performance and standard. Teachers converted their classrooms to commercial centres and engaged in petty trading during school hours to make ends meet. Most children also abandoned schools to engage in hawking while others turned hobos, wallowing the streets like urchins. The general neglect affected the psyche of students who used to come last in national examinations.
No wonder when Dickson declared the state of emergency, Bayelsans jubilated. Stakeholders in the educational sector leaped up in joy and described it as a welcome development. The governor had a bumper package for education. Infrastructure was to witness a total turnaround. Education was to be free and compulsory at least from primary to secondary schools and teachers were to be employed, trained and retrained.
Free and adequate supplies of instructional materials to schools; free school uniforms, sandals, bags, books to pupils and provision of desks, tables and computers for a conducive learning atmosphere were all components of the emergency in education declared by the governor.
But over three years after the pronouncement, how has the educational sector fared in the state? The Niger Delta Report visited critical stakeholders in the primary and secondary sub-sectors of education to gauge their experiences and their expectations in the sector.
All of them commended the motive behind the governor’s emergency in education. They said the gesture has positively changed the face of education and added value to the sector. They particularly appreciated the ongoing infrastructural turnaround of schools and the prompt payment of teachers’ salaries by the Dickson’s administration.
But they raised many concerns of challenges bedeviling the emergency. Their experiences revealed that most of the components of the emergency are not working. They are of the opinions that the system is still fraught with many problems because the governor has not created an opportunity to have direct interactions with them.
In the primary schools, the state of emergency appears to be a partial success. The state Chairman, Association of Primary School Head Teachers of Nigeria (AOPSHON), Mr. PPS Faafa, commended government’s efforts in building, rebuilding and renovation of primary school teachers. Apart from new classrooms, he observed that the government built quarters for head teachers.
“The government has tried in providing physical infrastructure in some of the primary schools. We believe that the project will be extended to other schools because there are schools that are still dilapidated. They have tried in building houses and quarters for teachers”, he said.
He, however, said the schools are facing serious challenges with other components of the emergency. He said the schools are still expecting school materials promised them at the take-off of the new regime. He said all the free items promised the pupils such as school uniforms, sandals, books and bags have yet to reach them.
He said: “If the state of emergency is declared, everything concerning primary school is supposed to be free. In 2012, some textbooks, exercise books and a few school uniforms were supplied.
“But from then till now, nothing has been supplied to schools and every year, we have new intakes. We don’t know what to do about those coming newly. So, it is not running smoothly with us.
He further said that the government is yet to supply teaching and instructional materials to primary schools across the state.
“There is no teaching material. We buy chalk and markers. We improvise these things to teach in the schools. But the supplies from the government is not forthcoming”, he said.
He added: “We are finding it very difficult and we want the government to come to our aides to make sure these things are provided”. He said the problem is compounded because the government has deactivated the Parent-Teacher Associations (PTAs) which used to come to their aide.
“They said we shouldn’t have anything to do with PTAs. If not so, sometimes the PTA helps to provide these things for us. But now we don’t have support,” he said.
According to him, the schools are also lacking enough teachers.
“For example in a school, we have over 600 pupils with only 17 teachers to attend to them which means a class of A, B and C will have only one teacher and they are all clustered in one classroom. We need teachers. Many teachers have been retired and since they are retired, the government should come in and bring more teachers”, he said.
Faafa said teachers are also lacking incentives. He observed that the government has yet to pay the 18 per cent minimum wage to primary school teachers and to promote teachers with increased salaries. He said the N15,000 monthly impress given to each head of primary school is too meagre to run the schools.
“When it is time for examination, no kobo is provided but we are asked not to collect a dime to enable us provide materials for children. Most of the new schools they are building don’t have fictional water systems”, he said.
He said: “The governor with his state of emergency means well for the state. We believe that these challenges exist because he is not aware of them. We know him to be a listening governor. He is not vindictive and as a man with passion for education and lover of Bayelsans, he will surely ensure that what we need to make the system work is provided to us”.
In the secondary school sub-sector, the President, All Confederation of Principals of Secondary Schools (ANCOPSS), Mr. Abbey Ayaegbemi, highlighted some strong points scored by the government in its drive to implement its emergency.
He said the government has done well in the areas of physical infrastructure, payment of WAEC and NECO fees of students and payment of school fees of teachers. He said most of the challenges bugging the system arose from the high number of schools across the state.
For example, he said though the government has recorded a feat in building and renovation of schools, many secondary schools are still begging for their turn. “The structures cannot be generally complete. The government has tried in building and renovating but the schools are many. Some are still yearning for their turns”, he said.
He said secondary schools are also having problems with instructional materials adding, “Government has been promising and we are still expecting”. He said the materials were in short supply in last session. According to him school uniforms were supposed to be supplied to students but were discontinued perhaps for logistic constraints.
He said: “The emergency covers a lot of areas. There are areas the government is performing and other areas requiring improvement. We are appealing that the renovation work should be extended to other schools. The government should also try more in teachers’ welfare.
“Teachers hold the key and if they are not happy, it will affect the working mood. We thank the government for its efforts but areas like the payment of emoluments are always dragging the teachers backward making them look as if they are not true civil servants.
“For the school system to operate maximally, we also require enough teachers. The last employment of teachers was done in 2006. Since then, there hasn’t been employment and within this period, some teachers have been dying, some have been retiring, some have joined active politics while others have converted to other professions creating a space. So, we need new teachers especially as the government has brought in new curriculum introducing new subject areas.”
While appealing to the government to regularly supply instructional materials on time, Ayagbaami said ANCOPS is grateful to the governor for being behind the current re-articulation policy in the system. “The policy has helped to make the schools better. Hitherto, we had junior and senior schools with two principals. In a school we had two levels of control and this created confusion.
“Students were not properly distributed. But the schools are now better and we thank the government for being behind the policy. But the process is not complete yet. We appeal that he should back up the proper completion of the reticulation policy”, he said.
In his general assessment, the Principal State Secretary, Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT), Mr. Okechukwu Okoroafor, appreciated the governor’s passion for qualitative education. He said the governor perceived some level of decadence in the sector which promoted him to declare the stage of emergency.
“The educational system was almost in a state of comma before the present governor came into office”, he said noting that Dickson has displayed a high-level of purposeful ness and willingness to improve the sector and put it right.
He said in the spirits of the emergency, the governor has been promptly paying teachers’ salaries.
He added: “The NUT as a trade union, is not mincing words, nor slacking in bringing to his notice the things that are to be done”.
Okoroafor said some hiccups still exist in the system. He said: “There ought to be parity between the state’s governing board and the State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) employees. The existing disparity tends to discourage the teachers in the junior secondary school sector”, he said.
Commending the governor on the development of infrastructures, he said, “No one can take that away from Governor Seriake Dickson; from the primary school up to the tertiary institutions. Still, there are some of the schools awaiting their share of the development”.
He further called for adequate and regular supplies of recurrent instructional material such as chalk, markers, diaries, registers and others at the beginning of every term. But he said the term “free education” must be properly defined to know who should provide the school uniforms, fund the examination materials, practical subjects.
He explained that the government should pay attention to sports activities and warned against undue interference of school programmes by community leaders. “Teachers should be left to do their job as doctors are granted free hands with the patients”, he said.
Okoroafor, however, added that the governor will quickly resolve some of the hiccups in the educational sector if he can listen to them directly. “People try to be polite, and thereby disrupt flow of information. If we are allowed to meet with the governor, there will be a take-home. Something must be done; the school system needs to be salvaged; the re-articulation of schools must be revisited”, he said.
When the Niger Delta Report visited the state Chairman, NUT, Mr. Bokolo Tonworio Tobin, he also appraised the emergency, commended the governor but raises some problems mitigating against the system.
He listed some of the challenges as non-promotion of teachers, unavailability of resources and amenities in the schools; harassment of teachers, neglect of teachers and paucity of funds.
He further said that the number of teachers was not enough and called on the government to empty more teachers and carry them along in policy formulation.
“Teachers should be protected against parents’ unwarranted interference in administrative measures”, he said.
Though Niger Delta Report could not get the direct responses of the Commissioner for Education, Mr. Dein Benedourmene, it was learnt that the educational stakeholders had a close-door meeting with the commissioner on Monday in his office where the challenges bugging Dickson’s emergency were discussed.
One of the teachers, who attended the meeting but spoke in confidence, said: “Like we earlier said, there are some high points of the demands of teachers. We reasoned together with the commissioner. He assured us that instructional materials will be supplied to all the schools within this holiday period, so that on resumption, they can now be put into effective use.
The source said: “Even, he underscored the importance of the schools being properly funded for the purposes of conducting exams; the JSS3 exams, promotion classes’ exams, and the unified exams.
“It was a very fruitful discussion, and we are hopeful that, come September, the schools will function very well. He regretted that the ongoing payment of N18,000 minimum wage arrears which have not gotten to teachers.
“But he said that he will consult with the governor to make sure that they review the method of payment, to make sure that teachers are paid as at when due. He re-emphasized governor’s interest in the educational sector saying it was why he declared the state of emergency in education.
“He also commented that they will improve upon what they have done on infrastructure. The area we harped on was provision of instructional materials, diaries, registers, books, chalk, papers, stationeries and others.
“These are areas where we felt we were in dire need. And, he assured us that they would not just be provided, but they will be provided before schools re-open, sothat when schools resume, they will function effectively. By our own assessment of our interaction with him, it was a very fruitful one, and we have high hopes that everything will be okay for both the pupils, students and teachers as well.
“The commissioner said it is still the policy of the government to operate free and compulsory primary and secondary education. In that case, parents and students ought not to pay anything; the government will fund everything.
“The true position is that, according to him, government is still willing to provide free uniforms, but it does not mean that parents should not buy uniforms for their children. A child could have uniforms in multiples.
“On the shortage of teachers, the commissioner said there is a rationalisation going on after which the vacancy will be determined, and then, recruitment can take place. He said emphatically that, it is only based on statistics that recruitment could be done, if not, it would be a haphazard recruitment. We are satisfied with our discussion with them.”
