By Ifeoma Ezenyilimba
The Catholic Bishop of Awka Diocese, Most Rev Paulinus Ezeokafor, has again called on the state and the Nigerian governments to provide the needed grant in aid for better running of mission and other private schools of the country.
Bishop Ezeokafor, who made the call in his homily of the Holy Mass to mark the 21st Founders’ Day and 2020 Parents’ Day of AUSTICA Memorial College, Nanka, Orumba North LGA, February 15, urged government at all levels to make the grant in aid for the private schools part of the state and national annual budgets.
He noted that the grant in aid was also very important to the private schools, just as it was to the government public schools, and wondered why the Anambra and Nigerian children in mission schools would not enjoy the grants like their counterparts in public schools.
The education-friendly Catholic prelate noted that the grant in aid when provided, would enable the Church to do more in her mission of all-round academic, moral and spiritual formation of the children.
He observed that the quality education and all-round formation which the mission schools provided appeared expensive due to the absence of stable support from the government. The bishop therefore called on the government to attach strict importance to grant in aids for mission and other private schools so as to make quality education affordable for all.
