By Odimegwu Onwumere
“We are tinkering with the idea of
establishing a new teachers’ training college for the sole purpose of training
teachers. We don’t have teachers and if we establish it, it becomes an easy
avenue to feed the University. We want to also establish a Rivers State
University of Education to train teachers because we completely lack teachers.”
Governor Chibuike Amaechi of Rivers State
was caught with this statement during his First Monthly Media Briefing, on
Tuesday, September 15, 2009 at 10:06am. The issue of education was first on the
index, as he addressed sundry issues he said that concerned Rivers State.
He said that by the end of his tenure the state government should have
built 750 new model primary schools. This was after this administration took
over primary schools from the Local Government councils.
The government said that it started
building 250 new primary schools and later added another 100 to it and promised
that by 2010 instead of building another 250 it will be 150, making it 500 new
primary schools.
The committee that was set up to
look into primary education in the State brought a blueprint of demolishing the
1300 primary schools that were. The committee said that the 1300 primary
schools didn’t fit into what primary schools should look like. The old 1300
schools, they were 6 classroom blocks, but what the government said it was
building is 14 classroom blocks.
The government however swaggered
that the difference is clear and that it has taken over the payment of teachers
ointments both the payment of junior secondary school teachers’ salaries, which
the Local Government people were paying.
“At the end of the first month we
paid between 1.1 to 1.2billion naira as teachers’ salaries at the primary
school level and at the junior secondary school level, which before now were
the responsibility of the Local Government councils,” Amaechi had said.
Within this period of briefing the
newsmen, the governor said that his government has already completed 10 out of
the 250 new primary schools and believed that 25 should be ready before the end
of the month and about 150 new model Primary schools should be delivered at the
end of December.
We have deemed it convenient to
remind the state government to review from time to time some of its policies to
see if they meet with the present realities. For example, within the period in
question the governor had said that Secondary Schools, especially the one at
Eleme was nearing completion, but he did not pride himself with that one
because the former Commissioner for Education (within the period) located that
school on only 8-9 hectares of land, having said that the secondary schools
should be located on 25 hectares of land.
The question is why did the former
education czar in the state have to go contrary to what the state government
drew as its roadmap and was treated with mere public speaking? The governor had
said that a model of the school at Tai was what all the schools should look
like even though that it was at the foundation level at that time.
It is such behavior as the former
education commissioner in the state that has kept the efforts of the governor
as a shrub among the poplars no matter all his brainstorming with experts and
professionals in making sure that the state work.
The former commissioner was only
given a tap on the back with such discretion of the governor (and was asked to
go) without probe to ascertain why the commissioner preferred 8-9- hectares as
against the government’s preferred 25 hectares of land.
The Rivers masses are not even sure if it was not on the same 8-9- hectares
instead of the preferred 25 hectares that the erection of the new model schools
in the 23 Local Government Areas of the state.
At Oyigbo and Omuma Local Government
Areas, the governor had told the Rivers masses to go and see what was happening
in those two areas. However, Amaechi we knew would not have suffered the
commissioner gladly, because spending about N27 billion and nearly 90 billion
for the Secondary Schools and building 23 new Secondary schools and the
decision to build one at Ubima (the governor’s home town) was no joke at the
period in question, and somebody wanted to make a toy out of the project.
While the governor had once said
that rain had stopped the government from continuing construction work at the
new Rivers State University of Science and Technology in the new Greater Port
Harcourt city, we hope that by now the work must have been completed. The
governor should check, because he had told the Rivers masses that his plan was
that by (September 2009) his government should have gone ahead with the
foundation for the hostels.
Unlike the 8-9 hectares that was
preferred by the former commissioner for education as against the government’s
25 hectares for the construction of the schools, there is need to check whether
the capacity for the new hostel for the Rivers State University of Science and
Technology is 60,000 students as was said.
It is worthy of note from those
working with the governor that he had no yellowing agenda for Rivers State.
So, he should check spoilers of his government within. Imagine that his mindset
for the new Rivers State University of Science and Technology was that in the
next 10 to 15 years the students won’t be looking for accommodation. This is
good, but how well have the people assigned to make this a reality charged?
The state government should check
whether the contract which it said was almost awarded to Prodeco to build the
Hostels because it needed to deliver it before September 2010, is according to
plan. Were the athletes for the 2010 National Sports Festival in Port Harcourt
accommodated in the hostel?
Also, the government should check
whether its promise to construct a Games
Village near the
University was met, because it had promised that by October or November 2010,
it’ll resume construction. The state government also had said that it had
already awarded the contract for the infrastructures to Zerock. It promised to
provide light, water roads-circular roads and internal roads, drainage and a
sewage plant so that “we don’t have what they call soak-away pit inside the
school.”
Without doubt, the state government
had avowed to taking education in the state seriously. While it is doing that,
we advise it begins to review all its policies in making sure that they meet
with the realities of today and that those assigned to any works in the state
do it without bias, because it will be injurious on the personality of Amaechi
if his government at last failed. Tufiakwa! We do not pray for such.
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