One of the classes at Apana Mixed secondary school.
If you visit Apana Mixed Secondary School, Etsako-West LG in Edo state, you’d think you are in a war-torn building preserved for historical purposes.
But it is a ‘functioning’ secondary school, where students visit every day. The ceilings are completely torn, there are no windows in the classes, and the furniture is not enough for the students.
We spoke with the principal, who lamented the state of things.
“The classes are terrible, and we don’t have enough furniture that can cater to the students. The ceilings are broken, so when there’s heavy rain, we are in trouble. Also, there are no windows and fences.” said the principal.
This situation has led to the rise of indiscipline amongst the students. One of the teachers complained that they couldn’t discipline the children properly because there are no windows and fences. When they try to, the students escape from the window and go home.
“Since I was transferred to this school in 2019, we’ve been facing a lot of challenges. We don’t have enough teachers in the school. Before the community intervened, we had only 1 teacher, plus myself. That’s two teachers, and it is challenging.” the principal told Tracka.
Over 500 students in the school are left with only two teachers. The two have to take eleven subjects and at least nine classes. This means they are overworked and cannot deliver optimally, affecting the quality of education the children are receiving.
According to UNESCO, bringing children into school is not enough; children need to complete their schooling. Lower and upper secondary completion stands at 72% and 48%, respectively, in 2018, and the lack of a functioning education system is a huge contributing factor to these statistics.
Not only are the out-of-school figures alarming, but the literacy rates of children in school is also poor. In low-income countries, one in three young people still cannot read.
One of the teachers, name withheld, told us how they couldn’t improve their teaching mode because of the situation.
“We were given computers to advance the students’ learning, but there is nowhere to keep it in the school and no electricity. Everything we want to do for the children has been rendered useless because of lack of amenities.” said the teacher.
Recently, there has been a rise in fraudulent activities – tagged ‘yahoo yahoo’- by youths across the nation, and incidents like these, fuel it. The education system has been left to rot, and this attitude by the government encourages the youths’ disinterest in education.
The school environment is also fuelling thuggery and hooliganism. According to the principal, hooligans have made the school their base because there is no fence and nobody dares caution them.
The children are exposed to the thugs and can be easily swayed by their activities. One would consider that teenagers are easily impressionable, and being exposed to violent social activities without being cautioned does not bode well for the community.
We urge the Edo state government and relevant stakeholders to look into this alarming situation. Our children’s lives are being mortgaged, and crime is now looking more palatable than schooling because we treat their education with kid gloves.
Story by: Ayomide Ladipo.
This story is published under Tracka’s #LeadersOfTomorrow, a story series that sheds light on the state of the educational sector in Nigeria and how it affects the development of children and youths.
