Give pupils conducive learning environment, NGO tells Abia govt

Mr Emeku Uche, National Secretary, EasyLife Initiative for Rural Youths (ELIRY) an NGO, has called on Abia government to give public school pupils a conducive learning environment as their right.

Uche who made the call in Aba on Wednesday said politicians had no right to deprive children of good quality education while they sent their children abroad to study.

“I believe it is gross injustice for political leaders not to put the basic infrastructure in schools for the younger ones, knowing that the biggest industry in Abia is education.

“They would not put the schools in order for the children of the poor to learn and yet their children go abroad to study and they pay, there in hard currency.

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“They refuse to look at the schools or improve their infrastructure, yet every month, they receive federal allocations and claim to have education ministry budgets. That is very bad and unacceptable.

“Few public primary schools in Abia are in a sorry state and although the state government had returned some schools to Church owners, the ones government retained are nothing to write home about,“ he said.

Uche said that in some of the schools, part of the compounds had been given out to tenants while some had had their playing grounds and agricultural farms sold off to individuals.

He also lamented the lack of secured environment in which the pupils are made to learn, adding that such had exposed them to security risks and infections from faecal matter dumped by miscreants on their premises daily.

Uche said that although education in private schools had gone technological “in this age, the public school pupils in Abia are still left with no libraries, electricity or water for their studies.“

Citing School Road, Township and City Primary Schools, he said that their compounds had been sold off to give way for market, wondering how pupils can study under noisy market environments.

“Most of the spaces used for agricultural studies in the primary schools when we were growing up have all been turned to an extension of Eziukwu Market (the Cemetery Market).

“I believe that Abia House of Assembly Speaker, who is a vibrant young man, will add these things to the oversight functions of the Assembly and make the necessary changes the people of Abia are hoping for.

“And that he would ensure that those involved in selling school lands in Aba and Abia, in general, are made to pay for them without being covered for who they are.”