SSS 2 students sitting idly in class
A
brief argument ensued between some of the Senior Secondary School Two
students of Southern Ijaw Secondary School, Oporoma, a riverine
community 45 minutes away via speedboat from the capital city of
Yenagoa, Bayelsa State.
A young male teacher, Matthew Awoga, had
asked one of the students, Emmanuel Alabo, to write the word ‘malaria’
on the blackboard to test his spelling skill before the English class
would begin properly.
Trembling as he held the chalk, Alabo
dragged his feet to the front of the class, and after making several
attempts to write the word, he eventually wrote ‘marleria.’
Perplexed, the teacher asked the rest of the class whether Alabo was right.
While a part of the class said he was,
another part argued he was not. Some other students were confused – they
could not tell whether he was right or wrong.
The teacher was embarrassed; nonetheless, he called another student, a female, to write the word.
But the girl never attempted to write it. She bluntly said she had no idea how to spell the word.
After spending several minutes in front
of the blackboard, she dropped the chalk. “Sir, I don’t know how to
write it,” she admitted.
Wanting to ‘disgrace’ the SSS 2
students, the teacher dashed out of the class to select three Junior
Secondary School Three students “who would teach the seniors how to
spell.” But Awoga got more than he bargained for.
One of the JSS 3 students, Efe Moses, simply wrote ‘maleria.’
Likewise, Faith Income, 15, was asked to write same word, but wrote ‘asieg,’ a non-existent English word.
Firstman Woyinkuro, also from JSS 3,
eventually bailed his classmates and seniors out by writing the correct
word. The class clapped for him.
Saturday PUNCH correspondent
had disguised as a parent wanting to enrol a child in the school, but
wanting to see firsthand the situation of things.
Interacting with our correspondent
later, the students said it was not entirely their fault that they were
unable to write words properly.
The students said they had not been
receiving English lessons for a long time and that the teacher was a
National Youth Service Corps member posted to the school.
Going late to school
The time was 11:35am when some of the
students entered the school premises, chatting and playing along — until
they all entered their different classrooms.
For the next one hour, the students in
the Junior Secondary School 3 class sat on almost broken wooden seats
idly, some resting their arms on the desks, anxiously waiting for the
day’s lesson to begin. A young male teacher walked in with a stroke of
cane and a Mathematics textbook.
At his sight, they all sighed.
JSS 3 students waiting to learn under broken ceiling
The teacher, another serving National
Youth Service Corps member in the school, taught the class Mathematics
till 2pm. The lesson was over for the day. The JSS 3 students learnt for
an hour on that Monday.
Unlike in Yenagoa, the state capital,
where students were seen boarding taxis, buses and tricycles to go to
school at about 7am, the students of SISSO told our correspondent many
reasons why they needed not to resume early.
They said one of the reasons they resume late is because their teachers are not always available to teach them.
“Instead of wasting my time if I come
early, I prefer staying at home helping my parents with some house
chores,” a 15-year-old Senior Secondary School 2 student, Wisdom Victor,
said.
Opening his dusty Biology notebook for
our correspondent, the class’ last lesson on the subject was in October.
The boy forgot to date the lesson.
“We don’t have a Biology teacher again. Since the corper (corps member) who was teaching us passed out last year, we’ve not had anyone to teach us again,” he said.
Victor, who wants to be a medical
doctor, lamented that he was unsure of how he could achieve his dream
without having an adequate knowledge of his favourite subject – which is
also a prerequisite for studying Medicine.
Ghost teachers, ghost students
An SSS 2 student staring at the chalk when asked to write ‘malaria’
From every indication, Victor, his
classmates, juniors and seniors may keep going to school late, sitting
idly in classes and having a one or two-hour lessons, as long as their
teachers don’t bother, a position the principal of the school, Mr.
Austin Sofoni, agreed to.
Although he did not disclose the number of teachers the school has, Sofoni said they are “many.”
However, on the day our correspondent visited, there were only about four of them present, including two corps members.
He lamented that many of them are not committed to teaching and are also “difficult” to discipline.
He said, “We have a problem with
teachers. Many of them are not always around. They don’t come to teach
these children. Though we have many, most of them are not committed to
the job and they are difficult to control.
“It is so because they are paid through
their bank accounts nowadays; I could have withheld their salaries if it
was like before when they were paid by cash.
“Though I can still do it [withhold
their salaries], the process involved in doing so is not easy. Even if I
succeed in getting their salaries unpaid, getting them paid afterwards
is not also an easy process.
“When I consider all these things, I pretend not to know what is happening, but I truly fear for the future of these students.”
Some students of the school
The situation has adversely affected the
attendance of the students. Many students have since stopped attending
classes while some others have dropped out of the school.
Aside Victor, another SSS 2 student,
Orderere Agada, said she sometimes arrives in school very late because
many times, her class only has one or two lessons in a day. She added
that there are days when no lesson holds.
She justifies her lateness to school:
“We need more teachers to learn. Some of us, even I, sometimes arrive in
school by 11am or 12 noon because there are many times we don’t learn
anything. What’s the point in coming early?
“There are days that if we have more than two lessons, we are surprised. It’s unusual. Many of our teachers live in Yenagoa.
“Our friends stay at home, especially
when they are not sure whether there would be any lesson for the day.
They only come if we tell them teachers are around. We are determined to
learn, but we lack teachers.”
Moses Ayibakari, 15, also in SSS 2,
said, “We don’t have a Biology teacher since last term. We also do not
have a Geography teacher. We are pleading with the government to send us
more teachers.”
‘Politicians hire our teachers’
Expressing worry, the school principal
told our correspondent that he sometimes receives calls from politicians
telling him not to ‘disturb’ some particular teachers because they are
working for them on other duties.
He said, “Politicians are not helping
matters. In a situation where politicians call me to say a particular
teacher is working with them, knowing well that the teacher is fully
employed, what do I do?
“It would have been better if they would
rather tell us that they are no longer teachers so that we can forget
about having them in the system, but that is not the case.”
Southern Ijaw Secondary School
An Abuja-based political analyst, Mr.
Teniola Ayodeji, suggested such action could have been connected to the
fact that President Goodluck Jonathan hails from the state and there
would be lots of political activities there.
He said, “Elections are here again,
remember, and it’s the President’s home. But if politicians are engaging
teachers and calling the principal not to disturb them, then there is a
big problem in this part of the world.
“It’s the President’s home and the state
of education is perhaps expected to be far better than this. If the
‘President’s children’ are suffering like this, I wonder what is
happening to children in some other remote communities in the country.”
Ayodeji suggested that if politicians
are hiring teachers for assignments that pay better than teaching, it is
possible militants also hire young boys for their violent campaign.
He said, “It happened in the pre-amnesty era when militants from the state recruited young boys into their fold.
“They need young men to do that. All
they need is to lure them with money and this can make some of the male
students quit schooling.”
Teachers demand better welfare
Though the principal didn’t disclose the
salary packages of his teachers, he said they were well paid, being one
of the richest states in the country.
Meanwhile, two of the four schoolteachers who were around when Saturday PUNCH visited said they had good reasons for not teaching regularly.
One of them, who pleaded anonymity, said
it was cumbersome travelling on water from the state capital Yenagoa
where he resides to the community to teach because of the risks
involved.
He also said if the government could
construct a road that links the community with Yenagoa, “life would be
better for us and the students.”
He said, “It is not easy travelling on
speedboats every day to teach. If there is good road, movement to and
fro and teaching these students would be easier.
“Look at the students also; they don’t
have the privilege of going for excursions outside this community. They
only go to the farm or the river to swim after school. Many of them have
not seen cars before. They only see canoes and boats.”
Another teacher, who pleaded anonymity, said he lives in Yenagoa because of the presence of better social amenities in the city.
He said, “My family lives in the city
and I don’t think it will be easy abandoning them to stay in a place
where there are poor infrastructure. There is no good water source here,
no light, no road, and many others.
“Many times also, we don’t always get
boats on time to travel here to come and teach, so we return home. These
are the challenges.”
Youth corps members take charge
Almost all the students that Saturday PUNCH spoke with said they were most times taught by NYSC members posted to the school.
They said if that was not the case, probably no learning would be taking place. Victor said, “We need more corpers (youth corps members) to teach us.
“Our teachers come once in a while because they travel a lot, but the corpers are always around. They are permanent. As one set goes, another comes in. They are our friends.”
The situation has, however, led to some of the youth corps members complaining of fatigue and some illnesses.
One of them, Matthew Awoga, a Mechanical
Engineering graduate, said he usually experiences stress and sometimes
develops headache because he alone teaches Mathematics from JSS 1 to SS 3
and Introductory Technology from JSS 1 to JSS 3.
Waving a cane at the JSS 3 students as
they were making noise, he complained, “If you saw me when I just
resumed in this school, I was a fat person, but now I’m lean. Teaching
has drained my blood. It’s not easy.
“The teachers don’t teach them, they
leave the job to us. I pity the students sometimes because I know they
don’t get quality education. We are only trying our best as we are not
professional teachers.
“Many of them only come around when they have issues with their salary payment, otherwise, you won’t see them.”
While he spoke with our correspondent,
the school principal and a teacher, whom Awoga described as a ‘ghost,’
emerged from the principal’s residence, a stone’s throw from the school.
The teacher had just arrived from
Yenagoa to inform the principal, that he would not be available in the
school for more than two days in a week as he was ‘busy’ doing some
other things outside the state. Our correspondent overheard their
conversation before they switched to vernacular.
Companions with wild animals
Because of the swampy nature of the
school environment (and the community generally), due to the fact that
it’s a riverine area, Saturday PUNCH learnt from the students
and the youth corps members that wild reptiles, especially snakes, are
occasional ‘visitors’ in the school premises.
Vincent Christian, a JSS 3 student, was
bothered. He said, “There are wild animals here. We kill snakes and
scorpions because they sometimes lurk around the school environment.
“Many times when we are cutting grasses
or playing in the field, we see them and kill. We see big snakes at
times close to the window.”
Toilets, food vendors, miles away from school premises
Another reason why most students in the
school don’t learn for more than two hours in a day is because there are
no toilets in its premises. In addition, because there are no food
vendors in the school premises, some go out and never return for the
day.
“We go back to our houses, riverside or
bushes if we want to defecate because we don’t have toilet in the school
premises,” Godspower Blessing said. “Some of us also go home to eat and
don’t return, especially if there are no teachers around.”
The school principal, Sofoni, confirmed it is true.
He commented, “We are trying everything
possible to stop the loitering of students but there are certain factors
that are militating against the measures.
“In a big school like this, we have no
toilets. So when a student walks up to any teacher or me that they are
going to ease themselves, we cannot stop them. In the guise of going to
ease themselves, some of them never return to the class.
“They spend the remaining school period
in the town or even if they return, they come very late. Lack of toilet
facilities is a big problem here.
“Also, for those living at the far end
of the community, by 11:30am when the school is on lunch break, they go
home and never return for the day.
“You can’t stop them from visiting their
parents to have lunch. By the time they trek that distance, even if
they want to come back, it is already around 2pm when school closes.”
Poor infrastructure, impediment to learning
Non-availability of teachers is not the
only problem; the students complained that they lacked facilities that
could facilitate their learning. An inspection by Saturday PUNCH confirmed this.
The weather was cold due to harmattan
when our correspondent visited, and this made the students to shiver –
another reason why the students said they wouldn’t be able to learn well
even if teachers were around to teach them.
In almost all the classrooms, there are
broken windows and ceilings such that if rain falls, it leaks through
the ceiling and this also makes the students shiver.
Apart from broken windows, seats and
ceilings in the school, the students said they had no laboratories to do
practicals and no library to study while their teachers are away.
A JSS 3 student, Clarky Igburu, 15,
said, “We have broken ceilings, no windows, no doors, the harmattan is
affecting our us. The cold is affecting us, we cannot learn well.”
Christian also said, “The environment is
not good for us; most of us don’t want to come and study because we
feel cold and the environment is not good for us. We need better
classrooms.”
Not having enough and well-furnished
classrooms, laboratories and library also contribute to the reason why
the students don’t spend more time learning.
For instance, all the SS 2 students were
combined in one classroom and so when a teacher walks into the class to
teach, the ones who don’t offer the subject leave the classroom – to an
empty one, most times making noise there.
Due to idleness, some leave the school premises and go home.
“We can just walk home if we feel there
is nothing to learn again for the day, that is why we go home early even
when we come late,” one of the students, Moses Ayibakari, told Saturday PUNCH.
Ayibakari said he would have loved going
to the library to study each time he leaves the class for subjects that
he doesn’t offer, but there is none.
He added, “There’s no library. For us science students, we don’t have laboratories to do practicals.
“We learn computer education in the
textbook, but we have not seen any in this school. We learned that the
world now is a global village, but we don’t have computers in this
school.
“We want to be part of the global
civilisation. I also learnt that the forthcoming Unified Tertiary
Matriculation Examination will be computer-based, but we don’t have
knowledge of how it works.”
For Sofoni Ebimo, Thankgod Godgift,
Firstman Woyinkuro, Doralby Sekibo and some others who said they wanted
to become computer scientists, non-availability of the equipment may
hinder their ambitions.
“I want the government to c ome to our
aid. I also want to learn how to use the computer because I want to be a
pilot, flying planes,” Favour Gumugumu said.
A JSS 3 student, Ebibonimighe Gumugumu,
13, also said, “We need library. The one we have is not normal. There
are no books in there. We also need a computer lab, light and sports
facilities.”
Blessing Godspower, of JSS 2 class, confirmed what Ebibonimighe said, “There are no textbooks in the library.
“We have not learnt anything today
because there are no teachers to teach us. We don’t know many of them.
Some of them are not coming. I want them to be coming so we can learn
many things.”
Ebikeme Igburu, 16, also said “We lack
facilities in this school. I want to become a medical doctor, but I
don’t have a practical understanding of science subjects. We want
computers and electricity.”
The principal, Sofoni, is worried.
He said, “Now, WASSCE is making it
compulsory for students to write computer study, civic education and
some entrepreneurial subjects, where are the computers?
“Even if we have them now, can they
learn how to use them to write the exam between now and April (2015)?
These are some of our challenges.”
On the electricity issue, Saturday PUNCH
found out that the community doesn’t have electricity and so all the
residents depend on the community generator which is switched on at 6pm
every day for about six hours – at the time when many of the residents
would have gone to bed and the students would not be in school.
Poor academic performance
Talking about passing examinations, this
seems to be the least challenge for some of the students – because
writing seems to be the greater one, as our correspondent earlier found
out.
Despite the fact that the state was
rated 4th in performance in the 2013/2014 academic year by the West
African Examinations Council, an educationist, Mr. Tariowei Abule, said
the rating does not depict the true situation of things.
He said, “Don’t forget that growth is
different from development. It’s just like Nigeria having the largest
economy in the world, but still having low development.
“Passing examinations does not mean real
learning is taking place. There are ways results can be manipulated.
The process is the real deal, which cannot be manipulated.
“Many of them pass the exams, but cannot
further their education or cope at the tertiary level because they got
their O’Level certificates through malpractice. They cannot prove what
they have.”
Also, when another educationist, who
lives in Yenagoa, Mrs. Amaebi Owei-Tongu, learnt about the plight of the
students, she said there was no way they would learn well. “These
situations will adversely affect their overall performance and I don’t
know how they would be able to pass examinations,” she said.
Baffled how they could then be able to write and pass national examinations, our correspondent asked a youth corps member.
He explained that some of the teachers and his colleagues ‘help’ the students during such times.
For the ‘help’ – a word used for ‘malpractice’ – the latter pay for it by cash, though.
A former student of the school, an
undergraduate of the Niger Delta State University, Amasomma, Bayelsa
State, who pleaded anonymity, said, “We also paid for the help we
received during our time.
“I am not happy saying this, but that
was the situation we found ourselves in. It’s the way they could
compensate us for not teaching us well. They assisted us by writing
answers for us and allowing us to take textbooks into exam halls.”
‘We need help’
Sofoni admitted there was little he could do to restore the old glory of the 50-year-old school whose motto is “Show the light.”
Rather than being in light, he admitted the students are ‘living in darkness.’
He said, “In a school environment, what
should be paramount is the teaching aid. We don’t have enough
classrooms; the ones we have are not furnished with good seats. Many of
them are in bad shape. The conduciveness is not there for them.
“Then in a big school like this,
teachers should be accommodated to reduce their travelling on water
expenses. Some have to travel back to Yenagoa where they reside by 2pm
every day, so hardly do you find them anytime after that. They would
have sped off.
“Also, look at my office (looks cramped,
untidy and not conducive). Who can believe a cubicle like this is a
principal’s office?”
He also blamed the students partly for their woes.
He added, “The students are also to
blame for their poor performance. I was a student here in the late 1970s
and then we used to read a lot. We did study in the night.
“We were always reading and competing
among ourselves, but students of this school nowadays don’t do that.
They love staying idle and not taking initiative. They are not too
serious about learning.”
On not being “serious about learning,”
one of the teachers said there are a few students from JSS 3 to SSS 3
classes who have children that they look after.
Pointing at one of the female students in SSS 2 who is 16, he said, “She has a two-year-old child and always sleeps in class.”
The young girl was ashamed to talk afterwards.
However, Sofoni said the situation could change if the government would help.
He said, “There are politicians,
senators, and House of Representative members from this community, but
once they go out there, they forget about us.
“If not, we would have road and other
facilities. If the government comes to our aid, some of these problems
will be resolved and there will be better learning for these children.”
Post a Comment