BY CHIDI NKWOPARA

EDUCATION is the major industry in Imo State and all former administrations told whoever cared this bit. Despite this supposed position of successive administrations, not much was done to improve the infrastructure, which dilapidated terribly since after the Nigerian civil war in 1970.

Apart from what the immediate past state administration did to redress the sagging infrastructure and paucity of trained classroom teachers, the Rochas Okorocha government has taken the bull by the horn.

He first announced his intentions when he flagged off his gubernatorial campaign. He promised free education to the citizenry. This expectedly boosted his rating before the people and the votes came in torrents.

Soon after his swearing-in, Okorocha not only reiterated his earlier promise of giving free education to children but went a little further to announce that such children will also be given textbooks, school bags, sandals, uniforms, exercise books, writing materials, paid monthly stipends and all other requirements.

The applause was deafening! Before the applause died down, he asked parents to go back to school heads of their wards and collect the fees they paid in the previous term.

He warned school heads to stop collecting parents-teachers’ association, PTA, levies and indeed slammed a ban the association. He also warned that no child should be sent out of school because of lack of textbooks, uniform or any other facility.

Free education programme
The Governor has since extended his free education programme to tertiary institutions. For now, no Imo son or daughter will pay a dime to acquire education in Imo State University, Owerri, Imo State Polytechnic, Umuagwo, and the School of Health Technology, Amaigbo. They now receive bursaries instead of paying fees!

This has necessitated the posting of more youth corps members to state schools. Addressing the 2011 Batch B corps members, who served in Imo State, Okorocha urged them to embrace “self reliance, hard work and free enterprise as determining factors for survival.”

Gov. Okorocha acknowledging cheers from school children

He did not stop there. “I advise you to avoid mischief makers and other misguided elements in the society, who propagate and engage in terrorism, human trafficking, drug peddling and advance fee fraud as means of livelihood.”

Speaking also, the State NYSC Coordinator, Mrs. Chinwe Ojukwu, said that six names out of the 2,250 corps members that distinguished themselves during the service year had been forwarded to the governor for state award. “Some corps members who ran foul of the rules and regulations of the scheme, were also considered for sundry offences and will be subjected to various forms of disciplinary measures with the NYSC Bye Laws,” Ojukwu said.

Only last week, Governor Okorocha told journalists who sought to know why some of the freebies he promised children such as school bags, sandals, textbooks, uniforms and other components for distribution to the pupils at the beginning of the school year were yet to be realised that, he assured that several containers now lying at the ports are laden with these educational materials.

He said: “It is no longer a political issue that the free education policy of this administration is being pursued with religious and clinical finesse. Today, our primary school children are now being given monthly stipends.”

While explaining that the idea of giving stipends to children was not only to reconnect them to government but to also encourage them to embrace education, Governor Okorocha reasoned that parents and guardians would no longer have any reason to subject their children and wards to all manner of indignities.

He said: “The major thrust of my administration is giving sound education to our children. The greatest love we can show our children is to give them sound education.

What will the nation’s future look like if the next generation is a bunch of illiterates? This propels my actions,” Okorocha told Vanguard Features in Owerri.

Answering another question, the Governor said: “Over 3,000 students have registered for the Imo College of Advanced Professional Studies, ICAPS, programme”, adding that the courses taught in this school would make the graduands more marketable. Efforts are equally on to expand the intake.

As at the last count, Okorocha has awarded contract for the construction of what he termed “305 model classroom blocks in all Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, wards in Imo State”.

In Owerri municipality, work has reached advanced stages at the Township School, where this model primary school block is being constructed. The cheering news is that the administration has given approval for the reinstatement of all the teachers who were hired in the 10,000-job offer of the Ikedi Ohakim administration.

Presidential address
Delivering his presidential address recently, Bishop of the Diocese of Oru, Anglican Communion, Rev. Dr. Geoffrey N. Chukwunenye, said: “A cursory assessment of the performance of the present government in the state has a greater tendency to suggest that the Governor, Owelle Rochas Okorocha, has done exceedingly well in his policy thrust. From the foregoing, it is clear that the Governor has strong passion for education and great drive for human capacity development”.

The cleric also reasoned that “the government’s extension of free education to Imo indigenes in Imo State University, Owerri and Imo State Polytechnic, Umuagwo, is highly commended, especially when visitors to the institutions in the past have raised the tuition fees beyond the reach of the common man”.

In his presidential address, the Bishop of the Diocese of Okigwe South, Anglican Communion, Rt. Rev. David Onuoha, pleaded that grants be given to missionaries on a yearly basis, to ensure the arrest of the monumental decay in all the schools recently returned to their original owners.

He said: “The idea of free education from primary to university level is a noble one. It is a window into the passion and zeal in the heart of our dear governor for the total transformation of the state.”