Abia Govt. restates obligation to boost education sector

Abia Government on Tuesday restated commitment to transform its education sector through innovative strategies. The Commissioner for Information and Culture, Mr Okey Kanu, said this during a news conference on the outcome of the State Executive Council meeting at the Government House, Umuahia. Kanu said that government was strongly focused on improving the learning environment of public schools in the state, starting from basic one to six classes. He also said that the government had started massive reforms in the education sector and introduced a programme called “Reclaim Our Schools Initiative”, to achieve its goal. ”Part of the reforms in the education sector include training and retraining of teachers, monitoring of schools and of course improvement in infrastructure. “Also, to improve the infrastructure on that level, government will have to access UBEC funds by paying counterpart obligations,” he said. The commissioner said records indicated that there were all forms of encroachment on public schools’ land across the state and that government was determined to correct the anomaly. Kanu said that in line with the ongoing reforms in the education sector, such practice would not be allowed to continue in Abia, going forward. He further said that the government had formed an advanced network of Homeland Security Officers to provide security in public schools. According to him, the reforms are geared toward ensuring that Abia children receive the best education in a conducive, safe and secure environment. The Special Adviser to Gov. Alex Otti on Education, Mr Kenechukwu Nwosu, said that the ongoing educational reforms had been designed to fully address the needs of each public school. Nwosu said that an assessment of all the schools in the state would start next week to enable government ascertain the needs of each school in the area of infrastructure as well as human and material resources. “The governor has directed the Ministry of Education to immediately begin the capturing of all schools’ boundaries. “Also to recover all schools’ property and land that have been encroached or trespassed in one way or the other,” he said. Nwosu said that the assignment would be carried out through a systematic approach to ensure that the best results would be produced at the end of the exercise.