Residents of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) have called on President Muhammadu Buhari’s regime to build more public schools to cater to the needs of average Nigerians.

The residents stated that the number of public schools in the FCT was not enough to cater to the needs of the people.

Uchenna Ugwu, a petty trader, said public schools were the only succour and hope of education for the children of poor Nigerians who cannot afford to send their children to private schools.

“One of the major problems in public schools is the issue of overcrowding, and it is because more parents are sending their children to public schools,” Mr Ugwu said.

Agnes Okoliko, a fashion designer, said she withdrew two of her children from a private school to a public school.

While stating that there are more qualified teachers in public schools, she called for more attention to be paid to infrastructure, poor monitoring, and classroom management.

“Public schools are good but there are some problems that should be tackled to improve the standard of education like the problem of overcrowding,” said Ms Okoliko. “For me, the government should build more schools to reduce the number of students in a classroom.”

Sikiru Akeem, the principal of Junior Secondary School (JSS) Jabi 1, explained that the government should give more attention to dilapidated infrastructure in public schools.

He added that many of the schools were operating both the junior and senior secondary schools, which gave rise to overstretching of the facilities.

(NAN)