“Good morning sir, you are welcome to LEA Primary School,” the pupils in Deshi government primary school, sandwiched among broken furniture, chorused when they saw the journalist walk into their makeshift classroom.>>>READ FULL ARTICLE HERE
The fate of hundreds of pupils at the LEA Deshi Primary School, Gwagwalada community, Abuja, hangs in the balance over lack of adequate infrastructure. This amplifies the inhuman and depressing conditions of pupils in most primary schools in the Gwagwalada communities visited by SaharaReporters, writes Olaleye Aluko
“Good morning sir, you are welcome to LEA Primary School,” the pupils in Deshi government primary school, sandwiched among broken furniture, chorused when they saw the journalist walk into their makeshift classroom.
Deshi is the community after Paiko and before Etsu Dagbna and Dobi – all in the Gwagwalada Area Council of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja – not many tens of kilometres to President Bola Tinubu’s Aso Rock Villa (the seat of power).
LEA Deshi Primary School is supposed to serve the largely farming community but at first sight, the uncompleted building where the school rented, passes for no better description than a hideout for bandits.
Upon a visit to the school, SaharaReporters learnt that amid its deplorable situation, the government primary school faces an eviction from the landlord who provided the uncompleted building being used by the pupils and teachers.
This only means the school pupils may soon have to return to the worse, roofless structure where they came from – barely two years ago.
LEA Deshi Primary School was established in 2018. There are 10 teachers and three non-teaching staff in the school, SaharaReporters was told.
Despite its deplorable conditions, the school still manages to run primaries 1 to 6, though most of the pupils had dropped out.
One of the teachers in the school who spoke on condition of anonymity told SaharaReporters that the FCT SUBEB or Education authorities are aware of their plight and they had only promised to wade in as soon as there was “allocation.”
The source said, “If there is any help the government and well meaning Nigerians can render to us and the pupils, we would be grateful.
“The pupils are dropping out every week. Some of them that should come to this school have gone to other communities. When there was Harmattan, everywhere would be cold and dusty, the pupils were falling sick one after the other.”
“Many teachers don’t even have chairs. When the executive secretary came, he promised that as soon as any allocation comes, they will remember us. This issue has been since the school was established. It was last year the secretary came. I can’t remember the month. But since last year, nothing has happened,” another staff revealed.
“We have been like this since they established this school. From one house to another, moving from someone’s apartment to another and including uncompleted buildings, the first one they gave us, there was even no roof. When it was 10am that the sun would be hot, you had to discharge the pupils to go home,” he continued.
“Another building they gave us, the landlord later said he wanted to build his house and we left that place before we came here. Here now, they are telling us to vacate the building by next month ((March). Last month, they had already given us quit notice. We have spent almost a year in this building.”
“The pupils don’t have chairs; we begged for these few ones we have from people’s homes and neighbouring schools. We had to gather the broken chairs from other schools and we called the carpentar to fix them for us. The LEA authorities know about this mess,” another staff added.
The school administrators refused to be interviewed as they were entitled to do so.
“If we leave now, we don’t have anywhere to go. The first building we were; the owner would be cooking in front of the classroom and smoke would be entering the classes and disturbing the pupils,” another teacher narrated.
SaharaReporters also visited the LEA Primary School, Etsu Dagba, Dobi Ward, Gwagwalada Area Council, where pupils in the first week of February 2024 were captured learning under the tree over lack of classrooms.
About 92 pupils in Primary classes A and B attending the school struggled to acquire education under the shade of a tree because of absence of classrooms.
A situation like the LEA primary schools in Deshi and Dobi is what makes the figure of out-of-school-children keeps getting worse in the country.
According to the World Bank, Nigeria, in 2020, had more than 11 million out-of-school children between the ages of 6 and 15. This figure represents 1 in 12 of all out-of-school children globally and 22 per cent of all children in the age group in Nigeria.
Instead of tackling the rot in the public education in the FCT, the minister, Nyesom Wike is after private school owners and how to increase their taxes and levies.
In January, SaharaReporters reported how the proprietors of Abuja-based private schools rejected the decision of the Minister of Federal Capital Territory, Wike, to increase their operation charges in the FCT.
The school owners had noted that if the decision was not reversed, it would amount to an unprecedented increase in tuition fees which would affect the students and their wards.
The Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) under the FCT minister, Nyseom Wike instead of tackling the lack of classrooms ordered the headmistress in LEA Etsu Dagba, Dobi to merge two classes in a room.
SaharaReporters on a visit to the school observed that the said room is the headmistress’ office and she with her assistant had relocated their desks to under the trees.
A source familiar with the incident told SaharaReporters that the education secretary of the Gwagwalada local council area arrived at the school and asked the teachers to combine the classes to cover up the lack of infrastructure in the school, regardless of whether this would result in overcrowding.
Speaking with SaharaReporters on February 7, the source said, “This morning, early in the morning, the education secretary of the local government came to the school, When he came, he could not do anything (to solve the problem) but he just started shouting (at the teachers) on why they would do such kind of things. And that primary 2 pupils should go and join primary 1 pupils, and primary 3 should join primary 4 right now.”
“That is what is happening; he is now joining their classes together, primary 1 and 2 are together, primary 3 and 4 are now together,” he lamented.
One of the major causes of the lack of adequate funding for basic school education in the country is the inability or refusal of state governments and the FCT to access the funds by the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC).
In December 2023, the Alliance on Surviving Covid-19 and Beyond (ASCAB), a civic group led by human rights lawyer, Femi Falana (SAN), had given the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) till January 15, 2024, to access the over N68billion matching grants from the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) or face legal action.
The group had also asked the states and the FCT to register all the estimated 20.2 million out-of-school children in school and urged UBEC to disburse the counterpart funds directly to the state governments and the FCT.
The ASCAB Chair, Falana said the United Nations Children Emergency Fund (UNICEF) estimated the total number of out-of-school children in Nigeria to be 20.2 million.
The report further disclosed that one in three children in Nigeria is out of school, totalling 10.2 million at the primary level, and 8.1 million at the junior secondary school level.
It said one in every five out-of-school children in the world is in Nigeria. Over 60 percent of the illiterate are in the North. The report has confirmed that Nigeria has the highest number of out-of-school children in the world.
In November 2023, ASCAB through Falana & Falana Chambers wrote to UBEC requesting the Commission to provide information on access to the Commission’s matching grant by the 36 state governments and the FCT.
In its reply to the letter, the UBEC on December 11, disclosed that the total amount of unaccessed matching grants from all states of the Federation and the FCT stood at N68, 737, 873, 073. 52 as of December 11, 2023.
The Commission also disclosed that only seven states including Osun, Niger, Taraba, Sokoto, Enugu, Jigawa and Ondo had made lodgements as of December 4, totalling N10,603,248,284.94 for 1st-4th Quarters 2023 and were at various stages of accessing their matching grants.
ASCAB said, “In view of the fact that state governments have failed to comply with section 3 of the Education Reforms Act which mandates them to contribute half (50%) of the total cost of projects to be executed in the State as its own commitment in the execution of the projects, we are compelled to call on the UBEC to disburse the fund directly.
“This call is in line with the combined effect of sections 12 and 17 which have saddled the Commission with the responsibility to ensure effective implementation, evaluation and monitoring of the Universal Basic Education programme of the Federal Government and help teachers, school managers and other stakeholders in Basic and Secondary Education institutions in Nigeria to identify areas of deficiencies in achieving curriculum goals and help to remedy these deficiencies.
“As a matter of urgency, we call on the Federal Government, State Governments, and the 774 Local Governments to adopt remedial measures to ensure the immediate registration of the 20.2 million out-of-school children in schools.
“If the said sum of N68 billion unmatched grant is not accessed by the 36 state governments and the Federal Capital Territory before January 15, 2024, we shall seek an order of mandamus to compel them to do so forthwith.”
Government Reacts
SaharaReporters reached out to the Office of the Federal Capital Territory Universal Basic Education Board (FCT-SUBEB), but an official said the acting Chairman of the Board, Dr Hassan Sule, was not yet available for interview.
“Our schools soon will be witnessing tremendous changes,” she assured.
“It’s only the Board’s chairman that has authority to speak on the state of facilities in our schools. Besides, the issue your news agency reported has been captured in the Action Plan,” she added.
Weeks ago, the FCT SUBEB confirmed that the FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, had approved N30.9billion for the rehabilitation of public schools in the federal capital.
The acting SUBEB Chairman, Dr Hassan Sule, had stated this while speaking with newsmen in Abuja.
He noted that, if properly utilised, the fund would assist in tackling over-population in FCT schools and address the problem of out-of-school children in the territory.
The UBEB boss claimed that infrastructure in public schools were overstretched due to increase in enrollment of pupils and students, occasioned by the massive influx of people into the city.
He said schools in Kwali, Abaji, Gwagwalada and Kuje area councils were experiencing enrollment explosion, thereby overstretching most of the facilities on ground. “As the enrollment is increasing, most of our schools need simultaneous attention to ensure continued access to quality basic education for children in the FCT.
“We thank God that Wike has approved over N30 billion to address most of the challenges facing these schools,” he said.>>>READ FULL ARTICLE HERE
