…says he discovered poultry within school
…with children sharing school premises with birds
Abia State Commissioner for Education Dr. Kanelechi Nwangwa has said that the clampdown of private schools in Abia State is done with the aim to erase the negative education that most of the substandard schools are inculcating into the children.b
Nwangwa who spoke to Journalist in Umuahia said that the main target is mainly the substandard schools that did not meet up with the required minimum standard, warned that the state government will never go back on the 13th January deadline issued to such schools.
The commissioner said that no standard school will be shutdown, stressing that the target are schools run in residential buildings, Warehouses, Church halls, Village/Town halls and other make-shift places that does not fit the required minimum standard.
Abia parents and guardians have been thrown into confusion when the state ministry of education in the middle of December 2019 announced and reiterated the plan to shutdown so many private schools in the state this month.
The commissioner who said that what he is about to do has legal backing, made available a booklet that contains the listed minimum standard for establishing schools in Abia State.
From the booklet, our reporter reports that the minimum standard of establishment of a Primary School in the state are: “four plots of land, at least three classrooms with a dimension of 9m x 12m, administrative block, reading room/library, basic health scheme, toilet facilities,
“Games field-15m x 15m, qualified head teacher that must obtain at least NCE and be registered with Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN) with not less four years of teaching experience, other teachers must have at least NCE and must be registered with the TRCN, Farm land of about four plots,
“Utilities like borehole, electricity supply and fire fighting equipment, ICT facilities of at least two computers, bank account with N3 million naira to protect the interest of the staff and forestall exploitation before adequate income starts flowing.”
Although theere are required minimum standard for urban and rural areas, but the distance between both are not much.
On the establishment of secondary school, aside what was listed on that of Primary School, a workshop and laboratory and five plots of land are also documented as compulsory.
Other things included in that of secondary school includes: “Functional clinic, B.Ed/ BA or B.Sc plus PGDE and five years of experience for a principal that must be registered with TRCN, assembly and examination hall, guidance and counselling unit, a bank account of N5 million.”
The Commissioner said that the essence of going back to the drawing board to enforce the already laid down rules is to inculcate into Abia children and parents that education is different from going to school.
In his words, “We found out that our people have taken going to school as the same thing as been educated. Most parents send their children to school to get only good in their report cards. Whenever the child doesn’t get 10 over 10 they scold the child.
“The child will grow and believe that going to school is synonymous with coming back with good which means the child is wasting time. Soon, the child begin to think of how to clean bad into good.
“That mentality continues and develop into giraffing and cheating. Parents want good, children want good, but nobody cares about the standard of the good.
“They don’t fail in schools anymore because these schools keep deceiving parents that their children are doing well.
“I went to particular school and discovered it was poultry. They divided it into two, one side is school with children while the other side is filled with birds.
“You can imagine this kind of scenario. All those miracle centres are empty now, but during May/June WAEC, the place will become a beehive of activities.
“What’s happening? Some people will go bring textbooks, copy answers on the board for children to copy. At the end of the copy they’ll pass. Are they actually passing? They’re not.
“They’re only coming out with lots of “A” and when you try to find out the meaning of this “A”, you find out that there’s nothing inside it because it has no substance.”
He said that when he came in, he decided that the ministry will not allow such schools the opportunity to have a second academic calendar because what they are doing is negative education.
“We warned parents to take away their children from those schools that have no address, but they want them to remain there because they are giving them free grades without meanings.
“The child need to have not only cognitive knowledge, but needs both affective and psychomotor. A small child comes to school and stay up to 5p.m.
“They deny the child all the other knowledge and retain a tiny part of cognitive. This is not the tomorrow we’re thinking about.
“People are talking about the timing and what I’m saying is this; I understand the process of moving a child to another school because I’ve been into the system.
“That’s why we shifted the reopening of schools from 6th to 13th January so that those who went for Christmas will come back and have the time to put their children in other schools.
“We also told other schools that they may be changing to not to ask them to change their old uniforms since they’ve ran first time in their former school and they’ll gradually change them.
“We also asked them to allow them sometimes to put themselves together for issue if payment. We did this to correct the bad situation. We don’t need to wait for convenient.”
