The Executive Director, EDULEAD Development Initiative, Chinedu Okpara, said he was moved to tears when he visited a school with 1,000 students having only two toilets.

“One of the schools we visited had a population of about 1,000 students with only two toilets — one toilet for the boys and one for girls. Other schools we visited had no toilet at all,” said Mr Okpara. “For instance, John F Kennedy Secondary School in Owerri North has no toilet at all. So, the students have to go into the bush to be able to ease themselves, and these things have a way of exposing the children to molestation and a whole lot of issues associated with such exposures.”

Mr Opara stated this in Abuja, noting that his team, in collaboration with the UN Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), visited the school as part of a Dream Gap Initiative project.

The DGI is a project being carried out by EDULEAD, in collaboration with UNESCO, to assess education in Nigeria following the COVID-19 pandemic and how girls, in particular, were coping.

The project was launched in March 2021 to conduct a school assessment. The project’s first phase is carried out in six pilot states, Imo, Kogi, Gombe, Yobe, Nasarawa, Taraba, and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

Ms Opara disclosed that the project was an effort to partner state governments, international organisations, and other critical stakeholders to reposition education in the country.

He said the affected school, located in one of the local government areas of Imo, was an indication of the deplorable state of the country’s education system.

He stressed that one other school the team visited had no toilet, while a particular school had only one teacher for about 700 school children.

Mr Opara added, “We also noticed shortages of teachers. A particular public school we visited in Ahiazu Mbaisie has just one English language teacher for a population of more than 700 students. This particular teacher we discovered is being owed for more than a year.”

“Almost all the schools we visited had similar problems,”
said Mr Opara said besides the non-availability of toilets, teachers, and students of the schools faced other challenges.

He pointed out that some of the challenges ranged from a leaking roof, broken chairs, and tables to the non-availability of laboratories and libraries.

“The issue of infrastructure decay in our schools is very alarming, and we cannot say people should go back to school when they do not have an enabling environment to learn,” stated Mr Okpara. “We saw that a lot of schools have dilapidated buildings with rain dripping from the roof already falling off. Most of the schools had no laboratories or libraries, and all of these things have an impact on quality education that we are seeking.”

(NAN)