Please Help! Ekiti public schools lack Maintenance

Take a tour of primary and secondary schools in Ekiti State. Starting from Ado-Ekiti, the capital, to Iworoko, Ifaki, Oye, Ido, other towns on the northern side; veer to Iyin, Igede, Aramoko and others on the central axis and concluded your trip with a downward turn to Ikere, Ilawe, Igbara-Odo and Ikogosi in the southern part of the state. You would be shocked to see decrepit and decaying infrastructure under which the pupils study.

A recent survey by NairaNaijaNews revealed that four out of every 10 public schools lack standardized classrooms, furniture, adequate office accommodation for teach­ers, latrines and pitches for sporting and recreational activities.

Some classrooms built a few years ago by the State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) and Universal Basic Edu­cation Commission (UBEC) in many of the schools in these communities have become dilapidated, and had their roofs blown off by rainstorm and are yet to be repaired. Some of them have even collapsed and haven’t been rehabilitated for years.

Toilet facilities in some of the schools have also turned to haven for reptiles, goats and other wandering domestic animals as they suffer from obvious poor mainte­nance.

The situation, observers remark, is not only a slur on the image of the state that prides itself as the “Fountain of Knowl­edge”, with education as its major industry, but one capable of further denting the poor rating of Ekiti, especially with regards to performance in the Senior Secondary School Examination, over time. rating of Ekiti, especially with regards

At the AUD Pilot Nursery and Primary School, Irona, Ado-Ekiti, Muslim Com­munity Schools, Ajilosun among others, doors of the schools’ toilets broken, with collapsing walls and neglected septic tanks. Heaps of feces piled up inside the toilets as flies hold sway in them and scared away anyone who tries to probe the ugly scene. The unsanitary conditions in these schools raise fears of possible imminent break out of epidemic.

At St. Daniel’s Anglican Pilot Nursery and Primary School, Folabi Ola Street, Oke-Ila, it was found out that the roof of the Block B part of the classrooms is blown off. In spite of the exposed part of the roof, pupils take their lessons inside the block.

In yet another school, Mary Mount Catholic Nursery and Primary school, Oke-Ila, donated by SUBEB around 2002 and 2007, a section of one of the class­room buildings has cracked and falling apart. The building is a block of about three classrooms located behind the main building where many of the classrooms and administrative buildings of the school are sited.

At the Muslim Community School, Ajilosun, Ado-Ekiti, NairaNaijaNews learnt that the pupils and the teachers had had to make do with some blocks built by former governor, Otunba Adeniyi Adebayo’s administration in 2002 and the UBEC in 2002 and 2009, as a block of three class­rooms meant to address the problem of accommodation in the premises remained uncompleted. Unplastered and unpainted, this block is indeed an eyesore as it stands in sharp contrast to the other building.

Some teachers of both the public and public schools who spoke anonymously expressed helplessness at the plight of pupils forced to learn under the deteriorating condition of schools facilities. A teacher in a public school in Ado-Ekiti: “We pity our students most times. You know there are times we ourselves would not be encouraged to go to classrooms to teach because the sun would disturb us and we would be worried about non-availability of instructional materials. What can we do? We would just have to plead with the government to come to our aid as soon as possible. Although they have been trying but we know they could do better.”

His colleague in another public school in Ikere-Ekiti, said: “To tell you the truth, the government of Ekiti State has tried. Especially, the past administration did very well in rehabilitating school infra­structures in the state. Although, we later discover that poor materials were used in doing some of the rehabilitation and reconstruction works and that is why you are seeing them in bad shape now.”

Pupils lamented the ordeal they went through studying in crowded and dilapi­dated classrooms. Sixteen year-old senior secondary school 1 pupil in a public school in Ajilosun, Ado Ekiti, said: “In my school alone, we have about 30 to 40 students in a single class. Many of us don’t even have seats to sit in the class and for the very few time the teachers manage to come and teach us, we squat to receive the lessons”.

Also, facing the premises of the Muslim Community School on Ajilosun is an evidently long forgotten Children Playgroup Centre. Built on December 7, 1996, during the administration of the then Military Administrator of Ekiti State, Navy Captain Musibau Atanda Yusuf, the abandoned playgroup now lay in ruins and waste on the expansive piece of land.

Various amusement facilities inside the centre, including a multi-games pitch, small-side football, long playing field, swings, spinners, benches, refreshment centres among others have become obso­lete, rotten and useless. The once bubbling playgroup at the time it was constructed in the 90s, has turned into a ghost town and dumpsite, overgrown by grasses.

St. Peters CAC Nursery and Primary School, Ilawe-Ekiti, has one of the roofs of its blocks blown off and there appears yet to be a concrete step towards repairing it, although, a source close to the school told the reporter that some concerned residents of the town were making effort to repair the roof. However, a current dis­agreement among the prominent indigenes of the town has delayed the communal effort.

In Emure-Ekiti, abandoned classroom buildings dot the premises of the Orija Comprehensive High School. “There are many of the abandoned buildings in the public schools in this town and it is just too bad. Although, former Governor Kayode Fayemi tried to rehabilitate some of them, we still have many of them here in very bad shape,” a resident of the town, who craved anonymity, told Us.

Some indigenes of Ekiti and others who have been living in the state for years called on the government to rise to the occasion on time, adding that the pathetic condition of the affected schools is unbearable for parents and pupils.

Olaniyi Oluyemi, a resident of Ifaki- Ekiti gave knocks on both the govern­ment and the contractors who built the structures: “We can say that those firms that were commissioned to build the classrooms that are now collapsing after a few years have done a shoddy job. They must have used very inferior materials for the buildings and that is why you see them collapsing now. We should also blame the government also, for employing bad contractors to do these poor jobs. All this boils down to a failure of governance.”

“It is indeed a shame on our govern­ment for some of our schools to be in such pathetic condition. That is why many mushroom private schools have sprung up and many parents, though they can hardly afford their fees, prefer taking their children to such private schools. At least, those ones would have better classrooms and toilet facilities and children won’t be in danger inside the buildings of such private schools as they would in most public schools,” Jadesola Amao, residing in Ojumose, said.

Opinions of parents corroborated this view. Mrs. Abike Ojo who has a son in one of the private schools said: “Person­ally, I feel strongly that teachers in public schools no longer work as hard as their colleagues in those days worked. Besides, facilities in public schools have now become bad. Although, the government in Ekiti has tried a lot to develop most facili­ties in our public schools, we still have cases where the facilities have become dilapidated and unfit for use.”

Another parent Mrs. Olusayo Bunmi: “Most of we parents nowadays believe that the modern methods of teaching such as employing the technology of computers to impart knowledge are only available in private schools. You know the proprietors who own those private schools are run­ning them for profit purposes and some of them put the best facilities into use.

“They have all these facilities that most public schools do not have and that is why they attract more parents and wards than the public schools these days. But it will surprise you to know that I have my children in both public and private schools. The much younger ones are in private while the older ones who are already in secondary schools and higher institutions are in public schools and we have reasons for that.

“You see, in many of these public schools in Ekiti, especially in the pre-sec­ondary or higher schools, educational fa­cilities have become very poor. The class­rooms are in bad shape, the instructional materials aren’t there or not enough and so on. That is why most parents prefer their older children who are of the secondary school age to go to public schools while their younger children, of pre-primary and primary schools go to private schools where they would be well taken care of.”

Mr. George Odun who resides in Iyin Ekiti said: “I can tell you that the decay in infrastructure in the public schools in the state has been caused by acts of corruption on the part of some unpatriotic elements both in and outside the government. These elements I daresay, run the business of government as if it is an investment from which they must obtain their own interests and profits!

“Imagine a situation where a contract that should be awarded to those who are trained for the job is given to mediocre, just because those ones happen to be friends or relatives of the one giving out the contract. We even hear that there are occasions that government officials ask for gratifications from a prospective contractor before awarding him contract. And once the contractor pays to get the job, he also ensures that he gets more than what he had invested in it first before delivering the job. In such a situation, he goes for sub-standard materials so that he can extract his own profit by all means. This way, he delivers very bad job eventually.”

Deputy Governor of Ekiti State, Dr. Kolapo Olusola, is overseeing the education sector. His reaction: “We have noticed the decay in the infrastructure ourselves. It is due to the way the previous administration handled the jobs. We discovered that many of the school buildings were not well-constructed or constructed with low standard materials. That is why the buildings are collapsing now. But we want to assure that the administration of Ayo Fayose would not do jobs that would not stand the test of time. We will ensure that we carry out rehabilitation work where needed. Although, there is paucity of funds everywhere, all the same, we will ensure we do those that we are capable of doing. Already, we have many projects lined up, if you look at the Bisi Egbeyemi Market and E-library under construction, you would discover they are up to standard and being constructed with very good materials.”