Akwa Ibom State Governor Pastor Umo Eno has charged heads of schools and other institutions to preserve government infrastructures within their custody and ensure that the intended benefits of government investments in the sector are delivered to the targeted beneficiaries.
He also tasked headmasters and headmistresses of model primary schools built across the state to utilise the live-in facilities to enhance their care for the pupils and protection of the facilities in line with the aspirations of his administration’s ARISE Agenda.
Speaking at the commissioning ceremony of the Model Primary School, Uko-Oyukim, in Oron Local Government Area, Governor Eno said a special education monitoring team was about to be activated to monitor the model schools, warning that any headteacher found not living on campus or whose school facilities are not well managed would be replaced.
He, therefore, tasked the Akwa Ibom State Infrastructure & Assets Management and Maintenance Agency to step up their vigilance over the educational facilities, adding that he was willing to bring to bear his private business experience as a hotelier, where he would work round the clock to ensure every guest enjoys utmost comfort, to make Akwa Ibom children receive the best from government investment in the education sector.
“Very soon, we are setting up education monitoring teams, and the team will help us ensure that all of these facilities are intact. They will monitor all these schools we are opening, from the washroom to the classrooms, all the facilities, the curriculum and the work they are doing.
“The headmasters or headmistresses will also ensure that none of these facilities are destroyed. We must continue to maintain the standard. I am setting up a governor’s monitoring team, but they will work with the honourable commissioners to ensure that they give us the right information.
“If we come to your school, particularly our schools that are remodelled, and we find out that the standards are dropping, we will change the headmaster or mistress immediately. If we come to the school and discover that you are not living on the school compound, we will send you back somewhere else.
“We cannot use your money to put this edifice in place, only for it to go down in a few months,” the governor stated.
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Speaking on behalf of Oron stakeholders, the Deputy Governor, Senator Akon Eyakenyi, described the emergence of Governor Umo Eno as God’s blessing to Akwa Ibom State and particularly thanked the governor for accepting to be used to extend God’s love to Oron people.
According to Senator Eyakenyi, Governor Umo Eno’s value for education, which fuelled his drive to pursue and obtain a PhD, has been demonstrated in his identification of primary education as being fundamentally imperative and therefore investing in giving Akwa Ibom children a good start-up.
The Commissioner for Education, Professor Ubong Umoh, presenting an overview of the project, commended Governor Umo Eno’s model primary school initiative, maintaining that such underscores his administration’s dedication to transforming the educational landscape, thereby fostering academic excellence and social development.
He said the Uko-Oyukim Model Primary School, designed to accommodate 495 pupils in 19 fully furnished classrooms on a 25:1 pupils to teacher ratio, was fully equipped with library, early childcare development facilities, solar-powered ICT laboratory, modern sick bay, spacious auditorium, dedicated staff quarters, seperate gender-specific sanitary facilities, with comprehensive human kinetic facilities that enhances education and sports development.
Pupils of the school, little Miss Happiness Antai and Master Godwin Asuquo, conveyed the feelings of the school community through a special address and a ballad which expressed the gratitude of the pupils, teachers and their parents to the Governor for the kind gesture he has extended to them through the state-of-the-art facilities.
