The Imo state government on Thursday revealed its plan to boost education facilities in the state with N3.9 billion.
The Executive chairman of Imo state Basic Education Board, IMSUBEB, Professor Obioma Iheduru, disclosed this to newsmen in Owerri.
He also said that part of their strategy was that the government has set in motion a process to renovate 140 schools; build new schools; orgarnize trainings for thousands of teachers in the state, Including sinking of boreholes and repairing the damaged ones among other things.
Iheduru said: “We have come to lay the foundation for quality projects in education, the time we came in, we toured the schools and selected the worst of all.
“The cost of what we want to do is in the neighborhood of 3.9 billion to pump into the education sector of the state.”
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On what the plans of the government to do with the 3.9 billion, he said: “Presently, the government in collaboration with IMSUBEB has set in motion to renovate 140 school buildings each containing not more than six class rooms. “120 new construction of classrooms which will include head masters office toilets and 45 boreholes.
The board has planned to build fences to stop encroachment into many of the schools that are currently experiencing encroachment.
“These new schools, boreholes will be constructed across the 305 wards in the state, with the UBE funds and marching grants for the state.
”Also included is the training of teachers which we call it cluster trainings. In doing all these, there will be a team to ensure quality assurance in order to make sure that the teachers are teaching what they are suppose to teach to the students.”
He went further to say that “The board is responsible for basic education. By the law establishing it, it mandates the board to ensure early basic education from primary to JSS 3. Nobody pays for them.
“The wage bill as far as primary school runs into N800 million for primary schools. We have a teacher ratio of 1 to 38. But for effective teaching and learning in some places 1 to 20. If you look at this we need more teachers.
”To make life easy to live, the government has sunk a total 138 boreholes and most of these boreholes are not active. Many of them were not properly fixed.”
