How Kwara govt plans to arrest decay in public schools with N14bn

The state of education and facilities in public schools across Nigeria has been a cause for concern for stakeholders. The Kwara State government has commenced massive rehabilitation and construction of public schools in the state with a view to create a conducive atmosphere and also put an end to poor quality of education. Biola Azeez reports.

Over the years, the rot in the education system generally has been a cause for concern for stakeholders across states in Nigeria. And many states have continued to grapple with the burden of fall in education standard caused by a variety of factors ranging from poor funding to lack of infrastructure and teaching aids to poor remuneration of workers and dilapidated structures.

Kwara State is not left out of the burden of fall in quality as well as rot in its education sector. Indeed, it has become a major challenge in the state that the state government has continued to express concern.  The present administration in the state has continued to lament about the pathetic state of infrastructure in public schools in the 16 local government areas across the state, a situation it claimed it inherited.

And as the Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq administration continues to place the blame of decay and dilapidation at the doorstep of past administrations in the state, education stakeholders believe that the sorry state of school infrastructure needs urgent attention not buckpassing or complaints.

At present, many schools in the 16 local government areas of the state are in a terrible state in terms of infrastructure but the case is particularly worse in Kwara North zone of the state. One of such schools that suffer from obvious rot is the Polofo Community Primary School in Asa Local Government Area of the state. It is a reflection of the state of public schools in different communities across the state; there is an obvious aura of hopelessness within the schools and both students and parents have lost trust in the authorities.

The state of infrastructure at Bofaje/Eleyele Primary School in the Ifelodun Local Government Area of Kwara State has reached a state where it is a danger to the students. A parent who narrated the community’s ordeal described the situation in the school as a death trap, adding that in anticipation of rain, parents bring their children home for fear of imminent collapse.

“Unfortunately, there is no alternative to the decrepit school, just as there is none to the single volunteer teacher whose competence is equally below standard,” he said.

At Ansarul Islam Community School’s temporary site located at Obbo Ayegunle, a remote town in Ekiti Local Government Area, the structure used as school building is a mud structure with porous leaking roofs. The story is in no way different in Baruten Local Government Area of Kwara North Senatorial District. Baruten Community School which used to be four blocks of two classes each has been reduced to a half- roofed single class with no furniture. At Gwanara Community School, they have to improvise as there is no single furniture. Students have to seat on mats for classes.

Concerned about the situation, the state government decided to commence massive renovation of schools. Governor, Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq confirmed the terrible state of  the education sector while speaking during the flagoff of rehabilitation of 31 public schools and launch of free exercise books distribution to school children in Ilorin recently when he stated that nothing was done on public schools since 2013 by previous administrations in the state.

“Since 2013, nothing has been done. You need to go to our schools. The basic things like water and sanitation are not there. The leaking roofs and number of overcrowded classrooms are unbelievably high. For instance, a classroom in a secondary school in Ilorin West has about 100 students. How do you want them to learn? It is disgraceful. For the schools to keep up, they have to cheat. That was why we had the West African Examinations (WAEC) issue which we are trying to put behind us,” he said.

The governor further explained that his administration would organise a robust education summit to refocus and rebrand educational system in the state.

“Aside from this, we are going to reconstruct no fewer than 100 primary and secondary schools. They need immediate and urgent attention. But as they say, a journey of 1,000 kilometres begins with a step. So, we are starting with the fixing of 31 schools. All major schools are in deplorable condition.

“The condition in which the teachers have been working is also shameful. We are looking into their requests. Though we cannot attend to them all in one day, we will start tackling them. We thank the teachers for staying on the job and doing their best for the students. We wish we had met a perfect system; something to build on. Today, we should have been talking about free education. But the money we are using in fixing these schools is the one that should have been used for free education.

“I urge the parents, through their associations, old boys and girls associations, to do their best for the schools as that will go a long way in assisting the government.”

The governor said, his administration has paid counterpart fund to the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC).

“Now we are trying to meet up with the plans. What is delaying us in accessing the funds is that the contracts that were awarded in 2013 need to be concluded and certified before we have full access to the funds. Hopefully, this year, we will commence accessing the funds. There is an accumulation of about N7billion which we can access and we intend to bring seven billion as our own counterpart funding.

“So, the future is bright. If we can bring N14 billion into the educational sector, we will certainly make the changes. We want to restore this state back to number one in the education sector in the northern part of Nigeria. That is our aim,” he said.

Also speaking on the state of infrastructure in public schools in the state, a member of a nongovernmental organization (NGO) with bias for communal and even spread of development projects in the state, Kwara Development Trackers (KDT), Sambo Muritala, called on government, communities and all relevant stakeholders to come together, as a first step, towards reviving educational system in the state.

He said: “Necessary steps need to be taken in order to restructure and save the sector. The government at the state and local government levels need to commit to the delivering of uniformed and competitive standard of education across the state. Also, the right investments need to be done in order to get the desired results. Adequate funding with good management will provide high quality education in the state. Funds for renovation of schools acquiring quality training facilities, research grants, decent teachers’ salaries and welfare package etc are the things that need to be increased, released and spent appropriately.

“There should be incentive-driven rural postings for teachers. It was discovered that overcrowding of teachers in the state capital and developed cities outside Ilorin is a constant phenomenon across the state. This is a major cause of falling quality in school children learning in rural communities. Realising that Kwara State, according to available records, almost 85 per cent rural communities, it means no fewer than 50 per cent of the children in the state are being poorly educated. This situation is a time bomb waiting to explode.

“A clear cut policy must, therefore, be put in place towards ensuring that teachers are evenly distributed across schools in the state with preference for rural teachers. An incentive-driven rural teacher mechanism should be established which will assist teachers posted to rural communities, like provision of accommodation, rural allowance, among others, to help teachers settle down and accept to stay in the hinterland.”

The Commissioner for Education and Human Capital Development in Kwara State, Hajia Fatimah Ahmed, in an interview stated:  “To be candid, the present administration has a lot of good plans for schools and education development in the state. Let me just say that the state of infrastructure in the schools now is not good.

“The government is determined to ensure that pupils and students get adequate monitoring. We are also encouraging our teachers to improve on monitoring of the wards under their care, because we believe they are tomorrow leaders and we have to do everything possible to ensure that they become good citizens in future.

“The state government has love of school teachers at heart because we are expressly committed to improving standard of education. And to make this possible, we have to give teachers a lot of incentives to carry out their function. The government is working towards achieving that.”

Hajia Ahmed stated that the state of infrastructure in most schools was nothing to write home about when the present administration assumed office.

“However, because this administration is determined to revamp the education system, it has decided to put a lot of things in shape. We are working towards achieving that. We will all see the difference when renovation works on the schools commence. We also want to train and retrain our teachers. As human beings, we need to be challenged. I believe that when these teachers are trained and retrained, they will perform better and churn out quality products and thereby meet up with intention of the state government to move education sector forward.”