By Emma Arubi

WARRI-DELTA State Governor, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan, has charged community leaders in the state to assist in securing public properties in their areas of authority, even as he maintained that the myriad of problems confronting the education sector in the state cannot intimidate his administration.

The Governor made the charge at the commissioning of a Science Laboratory building donated to Zik Senior Secondary School, Sapele, by Agbami Partners, insisting that there was no going back in his plan to tackle the problems confronting the education sector.

The Governor, who spoke through the State Commissioner for Basic and Secondary Education, Prof. Patrick Muoboghare, held that his administration was poised to leave a lasting legacy in the education sector.

In his words; “We shall tackle the problems and we shall not be intimidated by any problem. If schools are dilapidated, we shall rehabilitate them. They are dilapidated we know, but one thing I am certain of is that the brains of our teachers are not dilapidated because in spite of these problems we are having our teachers are still putting in their best.

“Now we appeal to them to continue to put in their best because no matter what the government says, if the teachers are not there to convert our expenditures to student’s product there is a hitch. I am happy to hear from the principal that with the intervention of Chevron and with the use of the laboratory even before the commissioning that the performance of the science students improved greatly at the current examinations. I congratulate you and Chevron,” he stated.

According to him; “What Chevron has done is a call for partnership. They have partnered with us to build this laboratory and our counterpart contribution is to provide the teachers who will use the laboratory. I promise you, in the next few weeks, we shall provide science teacher for this school so that the facilities given to us by this intervention will not be put to waste.

“I must appeal to community leaders, if after the laboratory is put to use for the next five to seven months and if we observe that the facilities are stolen, it can be very, very depressing and demoralising.

“Just as Chevron is partnering with us by providing this facility, the community must also partner with us by providing security for the things we are able to put in place, and the principal alluded to that when she was speaking. So community leaders and parents/teachers association, I appeal to you to help and partner with us by providing security for whatever we are able to put in place.”

He further disclosed that this “School was one of the schools that was chosen by the Delta state government for complete overhauling and not just patching of buildings. And all those schools in that set, about eight of the contractors have mobilised to site and I am expecting that any moment from now the contractor handling this one will mobilise to site.

“Because if the interest shown by the community, I want a situation whereby when the contractor mobilises to site, I want a small ceremony like this to let the world know that we have started work.”