ABIA GOVT TO RELOCATE CLOSED PRIVATE SCHOOL PUPILS TO PUBLIC

ABIA GOVT TO RELOCATE CLOSED PRIVATE SCHOOL PUPILS TO PUBLIC

by Nnanna Nwogu  

The Abia government has disclosed its plans to relocate pupils from the shut-down private schools in the state to nearby government schools.

Abia State Commissioner for Information and Culture, Prince Okey Kanu, disclosed this while briefing journalists at Government House on the outcome of this week’s Executive Council meeting chaired by Governor Alex Otti, stating that the move is to ensure the pupils continue their learning.

“The Ministry of Education is working assiduously to ensure that the pupils of the private schools that were shut down are relocated to nearby schools to continue with their education to ensure that they don’t lose the necessary school time as they were, so that is ongoing while the other issues about the closed-down schools meeting the guidelines of reopening are being worked upon,” Kanu said.

 

Buttressing the issues of the shutdown of some private schools in the state, the Commissioner for Education, Prof. Uche Eme Uche, said that while the government appreciated private investors for filling in the gap in education in the past, a lot of things were wrong with the private schools that were shut down.

“We as a government appreciate what the private proprietors have done in the past because when the government abandoned schools, there was a lacuna and private investors took advantage of that, but in the process, it was abused; places that were not even fit for poultry farms became schools.

“As a responsible government, in collaboration with professional bodies of private schools, we embarked on the inspection of all those schools and it was alarming,” she said

According to her, “There were instances where one teacher taught three classes; obviously, you would know that such classes don’t have partitions,” and she emphasised that those who do not have business with schools are not supposed to be running schools.

She explained that the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria has once again cancelled the recently rescheduled PTS examination in the state over irregularities.

Further, the Commissioner for Information informed us that 10 JAMB CBT centres that were shut down have been reopened, and more would equally be reopened in the New Year, revealing that the state government was engaging world-class experts to drive the reforms in the education sector while model schools are currently being retrofitted in various LGAs in the state.

The Commissioner for Information and Culture, Prince Okey Kanu, further disclosed that the state government has embarked on a total of 26 road projects, with six being construction and the other 20 being maintenance and rehabilitation.

He equally informed that the government was getting ready for the accreditation of ABSUTH, saying that “ABSUTH is receiving very rare reviews across the board, from within and outside the state, and the reasons are very simple; there has been a lot of upgrades in their facilities, they have new faculty members, and of course, the general environment of ABSUTH is being improved upon, and we believe that at the end of the day, the school will be reaccredited.”