Dining hall converted to classroom in Zango Secondary School

Zango Secondary School located in Kangiwa, Kebbi state has experienced exponential growth in students’ population, a development which has exerted pressure on the existing infrastructure available for students and teachers.

On March 19th2018, Tracka organized an advocacy campaign by reaching out to the principal and staff of the school  in order to inform them of the construction of a block of classrooms with furniture; a constituency project initiated by Hon. Husseini Suleiman Kangiwa in the 2017 federal government budget. The school principal, Malam Lawal Ibrahim stated that he is not aware of the project nor the amount allocated for it. The Tracka Project Tracking Officer distributed publications containing the details of the 2017 budgeted constituency projects in  Kebbi state during the advocacy campaign. Tracka is a citizen driven platform which promotes accountability and transparency in governance.

Findings in Zango Secondary School, Kangiwa revealed that classes were over crowded as students were seen sitting on the floor since the construction of classroom blocks that are supposed to reduce the impact of over population has been abandoned.  “I was told that N10M was not disbursed for the construction of the blocks of classrooms, that is why they are renovating one block of 3 classrooms which is ongoing,”  the principal told Tracka’s project tracking officer.

Increased enrollment rate in the school has also created challenges in ensuring quality education and satisfactory learning environment.  It was shocking to see a class of 200 students sitting on floor because of the lack of chairs. Also, the school’s dining hall has been converted to a classroom  in order to reduce the population of crowded classrooms. Under these conditions, teaching and learning cannot be effective; if therefor did not come as a surprise that the performance of  students in the school is below expectation.