Parents urge govt to rehabilitate schools

By Emmanuel Elebeke
LAGOS—National parents Teachers’ Association of Nigeria, NAPTAN, has sent its goodwill message to President Goodluck Jonathan and Nigerians on the occasion of the 50th independence anniversary and called for sobber reflection.

Also Chairman, Parents Forum, Model College, Badore, Lagos, Mr. Kazeem Lawal, weekend appealed to the state government to rehabilitate all dilapida-ted schools for effective teaching and learning.

Rising from its 72nd national executive council meeting last week at its national secretariat in Lagos, the association said it rejoices with Nigeria on the occasion of its 50th independence anniversary but said that the occasion called for sobber reflection, insisting that a lot still needed to be done so as to meet with Nigerians’ expectations.

NAPTAN observed that at 50, Nigeria is yet to rank favourably among the great nations of the world with myriads of problems rising from high unemployment rate, bad leadership, insecurity, bribery and corruption, erratic power supply, religious and ethnic violence, among others.

It, however, called for patriotism and a new sense of nation building among Nigerians to enable the country become a reference point at the global stage.

The association also used the medium to declare full support for the independent national electoral commission (INEC) towards its efforts in giving Nigeria a credible, free and fair elections come 2011,  and urged the commission to be focused and not to succumb to cheap blackmail.

NAPTAN also urged all Nigerians to ensure credible elections, and that every Nigerian of 18 years and above should register and to encourage every other eligible Nigerian to register during the forthcoming voters registration exercise in January. It equally urged urged Nigerians to come out enmass and  vote during the voting proper.

It is by so doing, it said the country would experience peace, tranquility and good governance.

The parents/teachers body further expressed concern over the continuous gender disparity that exists on boy-child in the South-East zone of the country and girl-child in the North and urged parents to mobilize themselves through their communities and their PTAs and  ensure that every child of school age benefits from the universalization of primary education.

To eliminate gender disparity in all schools, the association called on parents and the three tiers of government to take active participation in the supervision of the education and proper moral up-bringing of the children through school PTA.

It however noted with dismay the unilateral posture of some state governments to the genuine supplementary roles of state PTAs in which it accused some state governors and their commissioners of unlawfully retarding parents’s vital contributions to the development of education through their state PTAs by passing all sorts of uncomplimentary directives and laws which inhibits effective operations of the PTAs in their respective states.

Parents urge govt to rehabilitate schools

Chairman, Parents Forum, Model College, Badore, Lagos, Mr. Kazeem Lawal, weekend appealed to the state government to rehabilitate all dilapida-ted schools for effective teaching and learning.

Lawal said in Lagos that the bad state of some schools in the state had made teaching and learning difficult.

He said although the government had made some efforts to improve on educational facilities, there was need to rebuild more schools and provide furniture. He said that parents were willing to support the government in its efforts to develop education.

Lawal said: “We will always support the government in whatever way to ensure that the education sector is uplifted in the state.”

We know that we need to support the government in delivering functional education to our children,” he said.

State Deputy Governor, Sarah Sosan, had at a forum in Lagos recently acknowledged that some schools in the state were still in bad state.

“Some schools lack good furniture while some school blocks are not just fit for students to learn in,” she said.

Sosan gave the assurance that all dilapidated schools in the state would be rehabilitated.