IN a scathing criticism of education system in Ebonyi State the House of Assembly has said that most of the primary and secondary schools in the state showed dilapidated structures and lack of necessary facilities conducive for teaching and learning.
The assertions were contained in an interim report by the House panel on Education submitted to the plenary Thursday. For instance, the committee indicated that while visiting schools in the course of their assignment, "as at 9.35 am, so many students were still on the road instead of being in the school", adding that on inquiry the students complained that not even a single staff was available to instruct them.
Delivering the preambles while presenting the interim report of the committee to the Assembly, Committee Chairman, Mr. Chris Usulor (Ezza South, PDP) explained that members of the committee in exercise of their constitutional mandate of oversight, toured educational facilities in the state to see things for itself and seek possible ways of tackling noticeable challenges inhibiting educational growth.
Usulor noted that though the state government embarked on the construction of 27 pilot boarding schools and reconstruction of some school buildings, some of them were shoddily done.
Further, the committee disclosed: "In the Universal Basic Education Board, (UBEB) we discovered non-release of grants to UBEB because of non-payment of counterpart fund by the state government since 2010. Ebonyi owes N2 billion counterpart fund which, if paid, would enable the UBEC release grants to UBEB for school projects. We also discovered that ETF has stopped giving monetary grants to non-tertiary institutions".
The panel chairman discovered that 176 buildings were constructed by the UBEB in the state in 2011 adding that the state government approved waiver for the UBEB to recruit 1800 tutorial and 200 non-tutorial staff in the 13 substantive local councils of the state.
Part of the five-page report read: "In adult education sector, the activities are very low because of non-compliance of local government chairmen in paying stipends to the instructors or non-employment of instructors by the chairmen.
