BY: VITALIS UGOH, Calabar
Worried by the spate of decay in the educational system especially those norms and core values, Cross River state government is working out plans to restore it back in the school curriculum.
The Special Adviser to the Governor on Education, Mr. Castro Ezama disclosed this in Calabar while speaking at a breakfast meeting with Online/Blogger practitioners recently.
He said, “as Online/Bloggers, I want you to partner with government to see how we can improve and promote our educational sector by bringing to fore areas that needs improvement”
“By this partnership, it will go along way in helping our children and our people to improve from the present position to a more impressive and positive one, Ezama added,”.
According to him, “we have a governor and his deputy who are of long standing professors, adding that it is normal that where we have these two in government, Cross River should be a role model in education in the country. Cross River state has to take the lead in education in the entire country because our digital governor, His Excellency, Senator Ben Ayade ” thinks about Nigeria and Africa as a whole”.
He regretted that “secret cults exists in our secondary schools across the entire state.They are being trained. So in the next few years, they will graduate from Secondary and enter the Universities and they are very row. If schools reopens now, the crowd will be much because their parents don’t have the money to send them to public schools. All they need is good learning environment and they will blend”.
As a result, he said, government is planning to set up anti cultism club in all public and private schools in the state. The Club will consist of the Principal, Parent Teachers Association as well as other stakeholders in the education sector.
Already, ” I have come up with an anti cultism giggle in Radio and TV in the state. When we allow our students to be idle, the devil crips into with its own activity. We will continue to advance interactions between public and private schools by way of quiz and debate competitions in the state”.
He said that “Government Technical School Maybe ,does not have any laboratory for them to learn. If we must review our school curriculum, it must be in line with our Technical Schools.
“Government alone, cannot do everything, there must be partnership with private and public sector to drive the system. There are people that are representing them in the National Assembly from that area. They need to come together and contribute their quota towards the development of such schools. My office is compiling their names with a view to getting them involved in the rebuilding of our educational system”.
He said “there is a bank opposite that school. We are going to write to the management. We need them to assist government under its social responsibility package”. .
“There are prominent men and women in our state today that God has blessed that attended these public schools There is need for us to be deliberate about this by ensuring that we take care of our schools. There is a saying that says “if people embraces the fore walls of education, the doors of prisons will be reduced and curtailed”.
Ezama declared “there is no iota of politics in what we are doing here. At St. Theresa Primary School, Akamkpa, there is no land left inside the school premises again. The community have decided to build right inside the school premises. I am going to write to the governor and commissioner of police. Let the community choose between the buildings or the school. If there communities that want schools we move there and give them schools. Why would people encroach into school land?”.
According to him, “the story is worse in Cross River University of Technology. They have encroached alot into the Calabar campus. People prefer building inside school lands than having the school developed”.
He lauded the Online/Blogger practitioners for their contributions since this administration came on board. It is only in Cross River state that Online/ bloggers have kept government on its toes. He sued for objective criticism of Government policies and programmes.
