Has Anyone Visited Ikot Ekpene State College Recently?
By UbongAbasi Ise
In recent times, pictures and
video files had propped up on social media to expose the nakedness of our educational
system. In certain online pictures, children were seen sitting on bare floor, some
sit on blocks, while others avail themselves on any manner of makeshift seats,
just to receive learning. In a video, students were seen supposedly writing
examinations under a leaked roof during downpour. If you ask to know the
ownership of the schools where all these anomalies were found, you would find
out that those ramshackle institutions belong to the government.
In a public school where class size is 120 to 150 students,
one would see students’ writing desks placed in several rows from wall to wall
with no space for movement. Some of the desks would scatter carelessly on the verandah
outside the classroom. Students sit jam-packed inside the classroom while
others sit on the veranda for the same lesson. You would see a teacher standing
in front of the class to deliver lessons. In an event of having to correct any misconduct
at the rear side of the classroom, the teacher would have to jump on top of the
desks and tiptoe his way down back, after which he would return to his former position
at the frontage. That of a female
teacher in such a class is a worst case scenario. Madam teacher, who is wearing
a skirt, would have to package herself first, before considering voyaging on
the sea of chockablock desks.
The above
scenario is no fiction, but the actual condition of State College, Ikot Ekpene
– a school that has been very significant to the history of Akwa Ibom State.
The State College remains the manifestation of unity that existed in the past
amongst all sections of what is now called Akwa Ibom. It is the legacy of a
union whose membership was drawn from various ethnic sections in the state. The
school was built by Ibibio State Union and founded as Ibibio State College. It
was renamed ‘State College’ just to resolve ethnic question. In a way, the history of Akwa Ibom creation
could never be completed without Ibibio State Union. The narrative would also remain
unfinished without a mention of the State College when the state’s historical
birth is recounted. Today, Akwa Ibom State government has allowed this epic institution
to pale in value and importance. The State College has been infected by the
same destructive virus plaguing other public schools in the state. Could
something be done very fast to rescue the public educational system from
precipitous slide into nadir?
Looking at
our educational system, it is what you give is what you can get: that always
remain ultimate guiding principle. Yes, we want quality education, less school
dropouts, and a generation of young people defined by ingenuity and good
character, but we allow the system to struggle for its own survival. It is
reported that this year’s SS2 Mock Examination was a clear revelation of the
poor state of free education in Akwa Ibom State. The result showed more
failures than pass grades. Even as some see the outcome of the said mock exams as
a strategy by our prudent, business-oriented governor to reduce confident in
public schools and to scare exams candidates away from them in order to cut
cost of WAEC fees, some people still believe the same governor has created a
bleak future for Akwa Ibom State. Governors
of other states that desire better future for their states take proactive steps
to improve standard in public schools. For example, we can look at Nasir
el-Rufai of Kaduna State, who has given directive to all political appointees
in his government to patronize public schools, because that will encourage them
to pay attention to public schools that have taken care of majority of families
in Kaduna state. El-Rufai himself has led by example by sending his child to a
public school. Another example of a state governor with goodwill to improve the
public educational system is the governor of Ogun state, Dapo Abiodun, who has
made available study materials to the SS3 students because he wants to improve
their performance in SSCE.
Who other
person heard when Akwa Ibom State governor said parents should go for education
they can afford? Is it because our governor is doing governance as business, targeting
profits? It seems most parents are buying education for their children today at
public schools where they can afford.
Because Mr.
Udom Emmanuel wants education seekers to find their level, that should be the
reason public education would continue to occupy the lowest stratum in the
classification of standard of educational quality. Out of negligence of public educational
sector, heads of schools are groaning in silence, alleging that, they wouldn’t
remember the last time, His Excellency, Mr. Udom Emmanuel, send books to
students under his free education programme. According to one of them, who
spoke on condition of anonymity, “you have to be creative in exploiting the
poor students to run the school.” He said government is the reason corruption
is endemic in public schools. “For you to get teachers to teach, you need to
bribe the teacher by allowing him or her to levy the students anyway possible,”
he stressed.
Could we feel
how inane the foregoing sounds to our sensibility? Are our public schools,
altogether with the free education programme not both laughable and lamentable?
When the public schools remain rickety and serve as hotbed of corruption, only
the living would tell how degrading our posterity would be.
Because of
poor preparation, students in SS3 are in various co-operatives raising money
for the expected exams invigilators, including the school teachers that will
act as liaison officers during the examination. So there is nothing anybody
could do to serve the future of the state from systematic corruption if not
stamped out at the most basic level in the secondary schools.
The
administration of Mr. Udom Emmanuel still has ample time to redeem itself from
being in history the worst government in matters concerning education and
running of schools. Governor Udom Emmanuel should not allow hyper capitalistic
tendency to easily destroy free and compulsory education the former governor Godswill
Akpabio brought to the people of Akwa Ibom State. This should not be a case of
Ibibio and Annang, or PDP and APC, but about Akwa Ibom.
Yes!
I am UbongAbasi Ise. For comment, send SMS to 08189914609 | email:
ubongabasiise@gmail.com
©The Sensor Newspaper
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