Pupils Still Sit, Lie on Floor in Akwa-Ibom Communities’ Schools

PUPILS reluctantly recline and sit on the floor in ramshackle classrooms to learn at public primary schools in Oyoku Asang and Okisu communities, Okobo Local Government Area, Akwa Ibom State because of the state government’s inability to provide them adequate chairs, benches and other basic education requirements.Uncomfortable parents/guardians are pulling out their children/wards in their numbers from the ramshackle public primary schools, citing unspeakable infrastructure decay and neglect by the state government.
Findings by Niger Delta Voice showed that pupils, indeed, sit down on bare floor to be taught at Government Primary School, Oyoku Asang, due to lack of chairs, while teachers deployed to the schools by government typically abandon their posting. We also learned that the Government Primary School, Oyoku, has only one decrepit block of four classrooms forcing primary four and five pupils to squeeze themselves into one classroom.
The pitiable situation has been like that since 2008 and several complaints by the community to the State Universal Basic Education Board, SUBEB, have not yielded positive results.