Read Full Opinion:
ON THE ORDER FOR THE CLOSURE OF CERTAIN PRIVATE SCHOOLS IN ABIA STATE.
Town planning officers will mark a structure as illegal with the date it was marked. The landlord will settle them and building continues. Revenue generation strategy.
Maybe the current executive order to close certain private schools will go the same way. They will ‘settle’ and continue their business.
For me anyway, it is a welcome development, but I think, for this order to be considered serious, government should first do the following:
- Standardize the public schools. A good number of the public schools do not have seats for teachers and children. Many children actually sit on the floor to learn.
- In many cases, the school buildings are death traps, so dilapidated that staying in them to learn is a dangerous venture. Government should fix these buildings and build more to accommodate the anticipated upsurge in the number of children, since those from the closed private schools will be enroling in public schools.
- With this closure, many qualified and experienced teachers and other staff will lose their jobs. Government should employ them immediately.
- To demonstrate that they believe in the superior quality of education given in public schools, all government officials should immediately withdraw their children from private schools and enrol them in public schools. Those whose children are studying abroad should immediately bring them back to Abia State and enrol them in the nearest public school.
- I won’t say anything about teachers’ salaries. That one is easy to understand.
Nnaemeka J Nwokocha
Concerned Abia Citizen.
22/12/2019
