The people of Ofunmwegbe, also known as Okada Junction in Ovia South-West Local Government Area of Edo State have cried to the Edo State Government to come to their aide and rebuild the only primary and secondary schools in the community which are in a dilapidated state.
The villagers said that their Macedonia call became imperative given that several appeals in the past had not yielded any positive response, even as they bemoaned the situations, where pupils sit on bare floors to receive lectures, in addition to insufficient teachers in the schools.
Lamenting the parlous state of the schools, the Chairman of the Community Governance Council, CGC, Comrade Imuentinyan Ighodaro, said the poor state of the school had led to parents withdrawing their wards from the school.
The CGC was set up by the Koyenum Immalah Foundation, which is implementing a project known as Agents for Citizens driven Transformation, ACT, titled: Citizens Participation in Governance, supported by the British Council, to act on behalf of the community on governance issues. The programme is being overseen by the Network on Good Governance, NGG.
He said the primary school was founded in 2006 with the community donating the land and paid 10 per cent counterpart fund to build the school and thereafter donated furniture while the secondary was built in 2009 through the same process.
“The school was not fenced and that has made it possible for hoodlums to also go in there and vandalise the place. As we speak, there are no windows and all the roofs have gone bad, no ceilings, no chairs and the children right now sit on the bare floor to learn and because of that so many parents are also withdrawing their children from the school. The floors are also broken. The whole of the school is in very bad shape. We have a block of six classrooms and another block of five classrooms. We have government teachers there.
“As a matter of urgency, we want the government to come to our aid and put the school in order for our children. They should renovate it and fence it to give it security and stop hoodlums from coming in, and if the government is able to do that, the community will provide security. It is the same situation in secondary school”, pleaded.
A source at the State Universal Basic Education Board, SUBEB, who pleaded anonymity, disclosed that the state government was “adopting a holistic approach to schools rehabilitation and not a one-off thing.”