“We are tinkering with the idea of establishing a new teachers’ training
college for the sole purpose of training teachers. We don’t have teachers
and if we establish it, it becomes an easy avenue to feed the University.
We want to also establish a Rivers State University of Education to train
teachers because we completely lack teachers.”
Governor Chibuike Amaechi of Rivers State was caught with this statement
during his First Monthly Media Briefing, on Tuesday, September 15, 2009 at
10:06am. The issue of education was first on the index, as he addressed
sundry issues he said that concerned Rivers State.
He said that by the end of his tenure the state government should have
built 750 new model primary schools. This was after this administration
took over primary schools from the Local Government councils.
The government said that it started building 250 new primary schools and
later added another 100 to it and promised that by 2010 instead of building
another 250 it will be 150, making it 500 new primary schools.
The committee that was set up to look into primary education in the State
brought a blueprint of demolishing the 1300 primary schools that were. The
committee said that the 1300 primary schools didn’t fit into what primary
schools should look like. The old 1300 schools, they were 6 classroom
blocks, but what the government said it was building is 14 classroom
blocks.
The government however swaggered that the difference is clear and that it
has taken over the payment of teachers ointments both the payment of junior
secondary school teachers’ salaries, which the Local Government people were
paying.
“At the end of the first month we paid between 1.1 to 1.2billion naira as
teachers’ salaries at the primary school level and at the junior secondary
school level, which before now were the responsibility of the Local
Government councils,” Amaechi had said.
Within this period of briefing the newsmen, the governor said that his
government has already completed 10 out of the 250 new primary schools and
believed that 25 should be ready before the end of the month and about 150
new model Primary schools should be delivered at the end of December.
We have deemed it convenient to remind the state government to review from
time to time some of its policies to see if they meet with the present
realities. For example, within the period in question the governor had said
that Secondary Schools, especially the one at Eleme was nearing completion,
but he did not pride himself with that one because the former Commissioner
for Education (within the period) located that school on only 8-9 hectares
of land, having said that the secondary schools should be located on 25
hectares of land.
The question is why did the former education czar in the state have to go
contrary to what the state government drew as its roadmap and was treated
with mere public speaking? The governor had said that a model of the school
at Tai was what all the schools should look like even though that it was at
the foundation level at that time.
It is such behavior as the former education commissioner in the state that
has kept the efforts of the governor as a shrub among the poplars no matter
all his brainstorming with experts and professionals in making sure that
the state work.
The former commissioner was only given a tap on the back with such
discretion of the governor (and was asked to go) without probe to ascertain
why the commissioner preferred 8-9- hectares as against the government’s
preferred 25 hectares of land.
The Rivers masses are not even sure if it was not on the same 8-9- hectares
instead of the preferred 25 hectares that the erection of the new model
schools in the 23 Local Government Areas of the state.
At Oyigbo and Omuma Local Government Areas, the governor had told the
Rivers masses to go and see what was happening in those two areas. However,
Amaechi we knew would not have suffered the commissioner gladly, because
spending about N27 billion and nearly 90 billion for the Secondary Schools
and building 23 new Secondary schools and the decision to build one at
Ubima (the governor’s home town) was no joke at the period in question, and
somebody wanted to make a toy out of the project.
While the governor had once said that rain had stopped the government from
continuing construction work at the new Rivers State University of Science
and Technology in the new Greater Port Harcourt city, we hope that by now
the work must have been completed. The governor should check, because he
had told the Rivers masses that his plan was that by (September 2009) his
government should have gone ahead with the foundation for the hostels.
Unlike the 8-9 hectares that was preferred by the former commissioner for
education as against the government’s 25 hectares for the construction of
the schools, there is need to check whether the capacity for the new hostel
for the Rivers State University of Science and Technology is 60,000
students as was said.
It is worthy of note from those working with the governor that he had no
yellowing agenda for Rivers State. So, he should check spoilers of his
government within. Imagine that his mindset for the new Rivers State
University of Science and Technology was that in the next 10 to 15 years
the students won’t be looking for accommodation. This is good, but how well
have the people assigned to make this a reality charged?
The state government should check whether the contract which it said was
almost awarded to Prodeco to build the Hostels because it needed to deliver
it before September 2010, is according to plan. Were the athletes for the
2010 National Sports Festival in Port Harcourt accommodated in the hostel?
Also, the government should check whether its promise to construct a Games
Village near the University was met, because it had promised that by
October or November 2010, it’ll resume construction. The state government
also had said that it had already awarded the contract for the
infrastructures to Zerock. It promised to provide light, water
roads-circular roads and internal roads, drainage and a sewage plant so
that “we don’t have what they call soak-away pit inside the school.”
Without doubt, the state government had avowed to taking education in the
state seriously. While it is doing that, we advise it begins to review all
its policies in making sure that they meet with the realities of today and
that those assigned to any works in the state do it without bias, because
it will be injurious on the personality of Amaechi if his government at
last failed. *Tufiakwa!* We do not pray for such.
