By Daniel Tyokua
The Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) has sought for more support from individuals and corporate bodies to boost infrastructure in public schools across the territory.
Mr Olusade Adesola, the FCTA permanent secretary, disclosed that with the influx of people into the city, there was the need for additional blocks of classrooms, toilets, amongst others.
He said the government was not sleeping over education issues, but most of the facilities have been overstretched and needed to be provided with additional ones.
Adesola said, “the government is trying but individuals and corporate bodies need to support us, government can’t do all alone”
He stated this in an interview with journalists shortly after the 2021 public presentation of education publications, by FCT Education Secretariat, Department of Policy, Planning, Research and statistics.
“When you see the gap between the student population and the facilities available, it’s evident that the government alone cannot meet this challenge. So, we want to call on the citizens, especially philanthropists to help. Let them come and donate blocks of classrooms to us; Let them go to build schools to immortalise their names.
“Let them come out to support the developmental efforts of the government in various communities. When we do this, we will be able to address it. So it’s an issue that all of us have a role to play; Government will do its part, and the populace citizens will do their part. And the families too should do their part,” he said.
In his remarks, the Director Department of Policy Planning Research And Statistics, Dr. Mohammed Sani Ladan, noted that from the publications, it was discovered that there is an increase in the number of public primary schools from 619 in 2017/2018 to 629 in 2018/2019 while Junior Secondary Schools increased from 165 to 169 in the same period.
The three publications presented to the public are : Community Score Card 2018, Monitoring of Learning Achievement (MLA) 2019 and Annual School Census Statistical Reports 2017/2018 & 2018/2019.
However, critical stakeholders at the presentation called for more toilets to be provided to prevent open defecation as well as training and retraining of teachers to enable them do more, and that the government should engage more Public Private Partnership (PPP) to enhance the provision of education facilities.
