By Gabriel Enogholase
BENIN—GOVERNOR Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State, weekend in Uromi, disclosed that 80% of capital projects of local governments in the state would be devoted to building and renovating public primary schools across the state in the 2011 fiscal year.

Oshiomhole who was the Special Guest of Honour at an education summit organized by the Association of Esan Professionals said the policy was aimed at addressing the problem of infrastructure decay in the education sector.

The theme of the summit was Education Crisis in Esanland – Time to Act.

He added that the deliberate policy was geared toward laying more emphasis on development of education at the grassroots by council chairmen, saying that the state and local governments must now begin to complement each other in policy execution if the state must move forward.

According to him,“It is not going to be possible for us to build the Edo State of our dream if the state and local governments are not complementing each other. We have resolved that autonomy or no autonomy, the state and local governments must plan together from next year.

“In 2011, local government should not build health centres or grade roads. All capital projects at that level should be directed to building primary schools.

“Each local government has at least three clans and each clan must have at least a primary school of high quality with all the infrastructural complements. There must be conveniences, staff rooms, head teacher’s office, sporting facilities, borehole etc.

“Education is the foundation of any society and so local government should begin to redirect their policy priority to the development of that basic education. They must devote 80% of their capital projects to primary schools. Local government must be able to run schools completely even if it means neglecting other sectors. So we have decided that every excess crude fund for both state and local governments will be devoted to building schools.

Continuing the governor said, “The state government will continue to meet its own obligation. At the moment, N2 billion has been paid to contractors for the building and renovation of schools across the state.

I have inspected the jobs and I am quite satisfied with the level of work that is on_going. Before the end of the year another N2 billion will be made available for the continuation of works in schools.”

“During the electioneering campaigns, I observed that assessing most communities was a Herculean task because of lack of roads. If you do not address the problem of roads, the condition of people who are lurked in the rural communities can only get worse.

“We want to fight poverty without electricity, it is not possible. There must be power for the local communities so that the people can start something on their own. Our health sector is nothing to write home about. To get water, a basic necessity of life is a big problem for most communities. We can go on and on.

“We are in an environment where there are serious challenges from every sector. So for every money available to government, we must prioritized.

“To find the resources to adequately address the enormous challenges of the education sector, we need fresh initiatives on how to raise funds to implement the various suggestions that have been raised.”

“We look at the books of local governments and every year we see that schools are renovated and the books are balanced after payments are made to contractors. But the truth of the matter is that these contracts are never executed and even where they are executed, they are poorly done.

If they have been building schools since 1999 as the records show, how come there are no schools in every community? And you see the so_called contractor s move freely on the streets because they feel that without them you cannot be in government. All these must stop.

“The people must begin to have a major say on who governs them at the local government level. In the next council election, there will be no imposition. Power must return to the people so that those in governance can be accountable to the people. The people must not elect those that are morally bankrupt or fraudulent.

Once the power to sanction is in the hands of the electorate, stealing and fraudulent award of contracts will be impossible.”

Comrade Oshiomhole added that having beautiful infrastructures in schools is not enough to do the magic of turning around the educational fortunes of the state.

He urged education officials to ensure that only qualified teachers are recruited into the service, adding that all hands must be on deck to ensure that teachers posted to rural areas are not influentially redeployed to urban centres.

Earlier, chairman of Association of Esan Professionals, Mr. Michael Osime said the summit was to bring all stakeholders together to chart a road map for the restoration of excellence in the education sector.

He disclosed that the association has adopted some interventionist approach including the setting up of Education Gap Fund and the Operation Pick A School Initiative for Esan sons and daughters.

Mr. Osime added that the association was also into organisation of quiz, essay and debate competitions as well as sporting and cultural competitions among pupils and students of public primary and secondary schools in Esan land.

He revealed that poor performance in the last National Examination Council (NECO) served as the wake up call for the association to begin to explore ways of restoring excellence in the sector.

“Upon the election of this executive ten months ago we still were very concerned about the traditional issues which we have not abandoned but received a rude wakeup alarm when last November/December NECO examination result was released in March this year. The results showed a 2% national pass average.

“As professionals, we felt that there was need to talk to all principal stakeholders in the education chain. These are the state government, local government chairmen, heads of schools, the teaching staff, parents, the regulators, supervisors, students and past students.

“We have been meeting on regular basis with the supervisors of education in each of the five local government areas that comprise Esan and have had extensive deliberations on reversing the ugly state of primary education in Esan.”

He observed that the schools lacked the enabling environment for the students to excel in their studies and called for a collaborative approach to address the situation.

Highpoint was the presentation of cash and trophies to winners of quiz competition organised by the association for students of junior and senior secondary schools in Esanland.