Abia State government said it has concluded arrangement with the Australian Ministry of Education to retrain primary school teachers in the state to bring them to global standard.
Governor Okezie Ikeazu who disclosed this in his quarterly media briefing in Umuahia said his administration was poised to remodel the educational system in the state starting with the public primary schools. As part of the programme, he said the state will in the coming months focus on the rehabilitation of infrastructure in the public schools.
He said that for a start two model primary schools would be built in each of the three senatorial zones of the state and equipped with state of the art learning equipment including computers and furnished classrooms.
According to him with such facilities in place there would be no reason why any government functionary would not send his child to the public schools.
Dr Ikpeazu, a university lecturer turned politician, added that the model schools would have accommodation for at least 10 teachers including the head teacher within the school premises as it was in the past and to help protect the school’s equipment.
The model schools, he added would lead to the calibration of other public and private primary schools adding that once the government has set a standard for the pubic schools, the private schools would be expected to take a cue.
He also revealed that the initiative of his administration for public spirited individuals to take up the rehabilitation of primary schools and furnishing classrooms blocks in the primary schools they attended in their communities have started to yield results.
Under the aegis of “Friends of Abia ,Adopt a school Initiative” he said that work has started in three of such adopted schools out of the 35 that interests have been indicated adding that government was continuing in its mobilisation effort to bring in more people to key into the programme.
While answering questions on why he is yet to start the free school meals in selected schools as promised, he said that the project was temporarily put on hold and would commence soon.
He explained that it was discovered that most of the poor schools that were to be the beneficiaries of the free meals had their pupils sitting on the floor to take their lessons and “I can’t find my self on camera giving out meals to pupils sitting on the floor.