Not Much of an Education

On Monday December 17, 2018, I paid a visit to the elementary school in a village called Ikot Ukpong Obioese, that is less than an hour from the oil and gas hub of Africa, Port Harcourt, and right next to the well known Ogoniland. I was appalled by the conditions that I met at the school.

Besides the fact that the classrooms where completely dilapidated and there were no chairs or desks for the students to sit or work on; the school had just two teachers and a head teacher for primaries 1 to 6.

The two teachers had to merge classes in order to be able to teach all the students at least once a day.

There was no electricity or water facilities. Some of the classrooms had broken concrete floors on which the students sit and each student had just one exercise book and a pencil. It was simply appalling.

Most of the children ran around barefooted and their school uniforms where thorn. I had to ask the teachers if they were able to understand some English. They assured me that they did. But I doubted it because I could hear them being taught in the local language.

Upon inquiring from the teachers why they did not have more teachers, I was told that whenever they had a new teacher, the teacher could not stay for long because of the extreme low pay of teachers (about $15 a month). I was dumbfounded by the salary they mentioned.

Upon returning to the city, I purposed in my heart that I would do whatever it took to make a difference and find a way to mitigate the situation.

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