SOLUDO GOVERNMENT IS COMMITTED TO REVAMPING THE STATE'S PUBLIC SCHOOLS

 Soludo government is committed to revamping the state's public schools

By Izuchukwu Adichie

Mama Chinedu is a petty trader who sells on every Afor market day at Amesi, a town in Aguata, she had three (3) children whom she was paying their school fees; Chinedu 16; an SSS 2 student at Igwebuike Grammar School, Awka, Mmesoma 13; a JSS 2 at Ado Girls, Onitsha and Nnaemeka 10; a Primary 5 pupil at Amesi. Even though they said that previous governments declared education free in all the public- public schools in Anambra state, education was never free as school administrators demand exorbitant levies from these students which range from 9,000 naira, 12,000 naira per term and above depending on the location. With Mama Chinedu’s annual take-home of less than 100,000 naira, which comes from her petty trading, it became a burden sustaining her children in public schools and work for her children to learn, even the terms she struggled to pay, the outputs from the schools were consistently poor because learning and teachings were stale.

The above were the conditions of government-owned and managed basic schools in the state before the coming of Governor Soludo. When on Sunday, at St. Patrick Cathedral, Awka, I met three (3) women dancing and shouting; “Soludo is the Solution: Professor is now a Governor.” I became curious and with my colleague, we decided to know their reasons for eulogizing him, they couldn’t contain their joy, it was excitement that we read and saw in them. Without knowing us, they said that in today’s world, nothing short of access to quality education gives one an edge and it is the fastest link between the rich and the poorest of the poor. However, they are glad that Soludo had also announced a true free basic education fee policy, abolishing all levies in all public-public schools covering Nursery, Primary, and Junior Secondary. Only Senior Secondary Students are allowed to pay 5,000 naira across boards as against the previous 10,000 naira and above paid to schools.

Soludo has taken a huge part of the burden away from Mama Chinedu, and now learning is becoming fun for her children. They are witnessing the transformation by this administration; from an upward review of school running costs which ranged between 800 naira to 10,000 naira to now a minimum of 50,000 naira monthly, to training, retraining, and employing 5,000 teachers and, to end the use of PTA teachers, another 3,000 right teaching staff strictly for public-pubic schools are to be employed. It gladdens the hearts of our people knowing that now a Professor is a Governor, he is committed to revamping and rebuilding the system and operations that were left to ruin, he is focused on improving the learning outputs and making public-public schools globally competitive, and correcting the belief that a teacher’s reward is in heaven he would scale up infrastructure to improve performance, classroom experience would become technology-driven, pleasurable and method to be emulated.