Pupils of shut private schools in Abia to be relocated to govt schools

From Boniface Okoro, Umuahia

  Abia Government has resolved to relocate pupils of private schools shut down in the State to nearby Government schools. 179 schools were shut in the state for being sub-standard.

 Abia State Commissioner for Information and Culture, Prince Okey Kanu disclosed this while briefing journalists at Government House, Umuahia on Tuesday, December 5, 2023, on the outcome of this week’s Executive Council meeting chaired by Governor Alex Otti.

 “The Ministry of Education is working assiduously to ensure that the pupils of the private schools that were shut down are relocated to nearby (government) schools to continue with their education to ensure that they don’t lose necessary school time as it were, so that is ongoing while the other issues about the closed down schools meeting the guidelines of reopening are being worked upon,” Kanu said.

  Prince Kanu revealed that the state government was engaging world class experts to drive the reforms in education sector while model schools were currently being retrofitted in various local government areas of the state. 

 The Commissioner equally disclosed that the state government was doing all it could to get Abia State University Teaching Hospital reaccredited.

 “ABSUTH is receiving very rare reviews across board, from within and outside the State and the reasons are very simple; there has been a lot of upgrade in their facilities , they have new faculty members and, of course, the general environment of ABSUTH is being improved upon and we believe that at the end of the day, the school will be reaccredited,” he said

 Elaborating on issues of the shutdown of some private schools, the Commissioner for Education, Prof. Uche Eme Uche, said, while government appreciated private investors for filling-in the gap in education in the past, a lot of things were wrong with the private schools that were shut down.

 “We, as a government, appreciate what the private proprietors have done in the past, because when government abandoned the schools, there was a lacuna and private investors took advantage of that. But in the process, it was abused: places that were not even fit for poultry farms became schools. So as a responsible government, in collaboration with professional bodies of private schools, we embarked on inspection of all those schools and what we discovered was alarming,” the Commissioner said.

 “There were instances where one teacher taught 3 classes. Obviously, you would know that such classes don’t have partitions,” she added while emphasising that those who do not have business with schools were not supposed to be running schools.