Mustapha Shehu
30 June 2009
analysis
Maiduguri — There were about 40 pupils, not too many for a class in an era where one sometimes finds about 200. But instead of chairs, they had stones for seats. Their laps were desks, even though they could not use them because they had no exercise books or pencils.
The tree branches above them luckily sheltered them from the sun and they were equally lucky the rains had fallen the previous night. What would have bothered them, made them ill, in a village where there is not even a dispensary, was the dump cold earth. But they were lucky they had stones that separated their bottoms from the earth.
The school is Grim Primary School, Grim, located less than 20 kilometers along the Biu-Gombe highway in Hawul Local Government Area of Borno state, where the Council Chairman was a Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs in former President Olusegun Obasanjo's Administration. Standing before the PrimaryOne pupils, aged between four and six is teacher, a volunteer, with a Koboko (Horse whip) as his only 'teaching aid.' He had no blackboard and therefore wouldn't even dream of having chalk or duster.
It was the tail end of the second term and all that the pupils had to learn that day was the repetition of the English alphabets after the teacher. With youthful energy and eagerness to learn, they repeated the alphabets, as their parents, who out of sheer zeal to see their children get education, left them behind at school while they planted on their farms.
About a dozen metres away, and opposite this 'under the tree class,' was the Primary Two class also comprising of about 40 pupils. About half a dozen of the pupils in this class where lucky to have seats, while the rest sat on stones. Unlike the Primary One pupils, this class was not as lucky to have tree branches over them. They simply sat under the sun. Only a few of them had exercise books and appeared to be writing even as the teacher had no black board. Before the report would find out what these pupils could possibly be writing, the bell rang for a break and the pupils noisily fled towards their meals.
In a chat with the school's Headmistress, Madame Amina Hamza, while the pupils had their meals, this reporter learned that the school was established in 1975 with 45 pupils. It graduated its first set in 1981 and till date, about 700 pupils have passed through the school. At its opening in 1975, the school had one block of two classrooms and 34 years later, not a single classroom has been added by government.
After repeated efforts to have additional classrooms built by government failed, the impoverished community mobilised and built another block of two classrooms with mud bricks and roofed with corrugated zinc sheets. There are currently 223 pupils in six single stream classes.
Classes Five and Six occupy the government built concrete block that has craters in its floors and has not been renovated since it was built in 1975. Classes Three and Four occupy the community built mud bricks block that has no ceiling and is neither floored with cement nor plastered. Classes one and two are permanently held in the open with all class one pupils seated on stones, a few of class two pupils have chairs while the remaining also sit on stones.
In another chat with a civil servant of the rank of Deputy Permanent Secretary in Maiduguri , the state capital, this reporter learned that education has not fared well in the state since democratization in 1999. "The former governor's idea of development," the deputy permanent secretary said, "was to share out money to people." This philosophy was continued by the current governor, Senator Ali Modu Sherriff, who "modified it by throwing cash at youths wherever he went," until a day some youths were killed in the melee. Presently, the source said, Sherriff's idea of development gives preference to building housing estates, paving township roads and providing solar powered township street lights, more than to education and agriculture combined. The few attempts at investing in education, the source added, are the renovation of buildings at Government Secondary Schools Kwaya Kusar and Benishiek, and Government Girls' College, Maiduguri , which are all located strategically where visitors to the state must see them.
The state government's attitude to education can be deduced from its lack of utilisation of its share of the Education Tax Fund (ETF), as the funding agency recently advertised on the pages of some Nigerian Dailies. An agricultural extension officer in the employment of the state concurred with this assessment. He said the government shuns donor agencies and does not meet its counterpart funding obligations. As a result he said, "Primary education in the state is on the brink of collapse under the government-run State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) and there is equally no government policy that adds value to agriculture", he lamented
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