…Raise Shocking Alarm As New Academic Year Begins
By Michael Nnebife
As the 2024/2025 Academic Session begins across Nigeria, primary and secondary school head teachers in Awka, the Anambra State capital, are lamenting the neglect and lack of basic necessities for basic education amid the cheering news of the impressive performance of the present State Government in the Education Sector.
The responses of the head teachers in a chat with our reporter, monitoring the resumption of the 2024/2025 Academic Session, could be a serious source of worry and concern.
‘We’re suffering; nobody cares for us. For this, most of our teachers want to be transferred to public-public schools,’ the Headmistress, Ezinator Primary School, Awka, Mrs Chinenye Aguh, said, fearing that very soon, mission schools would not have teachers.
‘We’ve 13 teachers for 19 streams (classes); and six PTA teachers to make up because we don’t want to merge the classes,’ Mrs Aguh said.
She continued, ‘I find it difficult to pay their salaries because their salaries mostly come from my personal salary.
‘The administrative running cost also comes from my personal salary. I receive nothing from anybody for the running cost,’ the Headmistress said.
She also pointed out the challenges of infrastructural decay in the school, some of which, she explained, she had used her personal salary and assistance from friends and relations to solve.
At Central School, Awka, the story was not different as the school had a number of challenges bordering around infrastructure, administrative running costs, inadequate number of teachers, among others.
The Headmistress, Mrs Josephine Nwankwo, said the school was struggling with insufficient academic staff, having 40 streams with 21 teachers.
According to her, pupils’ desks and chairs, teachers’ tables, sports equipment and many other things at the Central School, are also insufficient.’
‘The mission initiated what we can call a mission levy of N100.00, paid by each pupil for Administrative Running costs, but the levy doesn’t go anywhere,’ Mrs Nwankwo said, pointed out that they used their salary to manage the school.
Mr Nwankwo and Mrs Aguh were however not deterred by the neglect their schools suffer as they expressed determination and preparedness to give their pupils the best.
Their secondary school counterparts, Mr Jovita Arazu, and Mrs Katherine Onwurah, of Igwebuike Secondary School, and Kenneth Dike Memorial Secondary School, respectively, also said their schools had begun academic activities, even though some basics, such as teachers of core subjects and lab equipment were still in lack.
However at National Secondary School and St Mary’s College, the narrative took a different dimension.
‘At the beginning of a session, we, as a school, do make provision for a capacity building for teachers. This provides us a viable platform to have some kind of prospect over the past term, to know where we’ve done it very well and where we’ve challenges; what and what we need to do.
‘These, actually happened last Thursday and Friday (12th and 13th September),’ the Principal, National Secondary School, Mr Christian Ebe, said.
‘Manpower and material-wise, we’re fully ready. If you go to the Secretarial Department, textbooks, school uniforms, sandals, and others, are available.
‘So, I can confidently tell you that we’re 120% ready for the new session,’ Mr Ebe said, and added that the school had a plan to assist the teachers in the area of transport fare.
His counterpart at St Mary’s College, Rev Fr Christian Azuike, also told our reporter that his school had done some pre-resumption activities such as resumption Mass, test, among others, to kick start the new term and session.
‘For this term, we’ve plans lined up, starting from investiture of the new students, prize giving for students who did well in the last academic year to encourage them, and sendoff for the past SS3 students.
‘These are coming within November and December this year,’ Fr Azuike said.
While appealing to parents to bring their children to the College, Fr Azuike said, ‘We’ve close to 800 students. Our priority is to give them a general formation, not just to train them on how to speak English and solve Mathematics, but morally, they’re nowhere to be found.
‘So, we ask the general public to bring in their children for us to get the best out of them, for a better society,’ he said.
