From Rose Ejembi, Makurdi
For six years that Rainatu Anas has been at the Arabic Nursery and Primary School, Makurdi, the capital of Benue State, alongside her classmates, she sat on the bare floor to take lessons.
The Primary 6 pupil sat on the floor in her classroom not by choice but because there were not enough seats in the school to for the large number of pupils.
She said: “Each time I come to school, I look forward to having to sit at a desk and chair one day. As time went on and by the time I got to Primary 6, it looked like that dream was never going to become reality but somehow, I kept my hope alive.
“No matter how I wash my school uniform, each time I come to school and sit on the floor, I return home with dirty uniform because of the dusty floor on which we sit.”
Little wonder she was overjoyed when, on Tuesday last week, Governor Samuel Ortom paid an unscheduled visit to the school during a tour of some projects by his administration within Makurdi metropolis, and directed that desks and chairs be provided for all pupils of the school as well as all public primary schools in Makurdi.
The governor, who expressed disappointment about the discovery that pupils were sitting on the bare floor to learn, directed the Ministry of Education as well the State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) to immediately see that desks and chairs were provided to the school.
The governor also visited the LGEA Central Pilot Primary School and Holy Ghost Primary School, located within the same neighbourhood, to assess the quality of work by the contractors assigned to carry out renovation work on the schools.
“We have gone to some of our primary schools that we have upgraded. I have seen the facilities myself and I have already queried some of the contractors that they did a shoddy job. And I think the board of SUBEB will take action immediately because I have directed that desks and chairs be provided for all the primary schools in the headquarters, that is, Makurdi here.
“I don’t want to see our children sitting on the floor or benches again and we are starting here in Makurdi, then we can reach out to other parts of the state. It’s an ongoing process.
“Currently, we have counterpart funding of N1.6 billion that has been allocated to us. We are sourcing money from the bank to make it N3.2 billion. Out of that, we are going to provide desks again and continue to upgrade the facilities in our primary schools.
“The reason is that primary school is the foundation of every child and we want our children to be grounded and very sound before they get to the secondary and tertiary institution. If the foundation is faulty, then you can be sure of having a faulty education for any child,” Ortom stated in a chat with newsmen after the project tour.
“We are very happy about that announcement,” Usman Abdullahi, a Primary 2 pupil, Nurudeen Abubakar and Michael Shaibu, both in primary 3, told our reporter during a visit to the school last Thursday.
“I sit on the bare floor in my class, since Primary 1. I am happy that the governor visited and made that pronouncement,” Shaibu said.
Head teacher of the school, Alhaji Musa Jibril, who could not hide his joy about the pronouncement, told our correspondent that he had made several efforts by writing formally and also visiting the Ministry of Education to get desks and chairs for his school, to no avail.
“I am very happy about the news that desks and chairs will be provided for us. You see pupils sitting on the floor from class one to six. I had to make efforts to make benches for some of our pupils, but I cannot provide that for everybody due to paucity of funds.
“That is why I was happy when the governor made the statement and directed the commissioner to meet our needs. Also, my teachers don’t have seats and tables.
“This is the second visit of the governor to the school. The first time, he came he saw how thieves were removing our roofs and he directed that the school should be fenced and it was fenced,” the elated head teacher said.
Jibril, who noted that the school’s population was 786 pupils, said, after making efforts before the governor’s visit, only 80 seats were given to his school in the past.
He explained further that the school housed the only all-girls Universal Basic Education (UBE) junior secondary school in the state, adding that, although it bears an Islamic name, it was fully owned by government.
The head teacher, who also lamented that the school had only 20 teachers to handle the 786 pupils, stressed that it had some empty classes that were locked up because “lack of teachers and seats made us to combine the pupils.”
“We still need more teachers because, as at today, we have only 20 teachers in this school and each teacher is to handle 45 pupils per class,” he said.
However, as they say, different strokes for different folks. When our correspondent visited the LGEA Central Pilot Primary School, a stone’s throw from Arabic Nursery and Primary School, there was no problem of seats but that of under-population.
Head teacher of the school, Mr. Emmanuel Chia, confirmed that the school, with a population of between 125 and 150 recieved 200 seats from the state government before now.
Chia, who noted that, before the COVID-19 pandemic, the population of the school was over 200 pupils, said the number dropped to between 125 and 150, depending on how the pupils come to school per day.
“Our student population is not static. Some days they come and some days they don’t come. The school is free but some parents can’t even afford buying their wards even exercise books or uniforms,” he volunteered.
When our correspondent asked why two blocks of nine classrooms were locked during the visit, the head teacher, who disclosed that the classrooms were fully equipped with desks and chairs said: “Give me pupils and I will open the classrooms.”
Chia noted that, during his recent visit to the school, Governor Ortom asked why there were empty classes in the school as there were only a few pupils in class and the seats were unoccupied.
He said he had sometimes taken it upon himself to visit some pupils in their homes to find out why they were absent from school and discovered that some of them were actually hawking things for their parents when they were supposed to be in school.
“We are planning to call a Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) meeting to let parents know that it is ideal for their wards to come to school. Even now, some pupils don’t have uniforms and we accommodate them so long as they are ready to learn.
“The government has tried so much to put these facilities in place but the parents are the problem,” Chia said.