About 50 per cent of primary and secondary schools students in Kaduna State take their classes under trees and other open spaces, a senior official with the state ministry of
education has disclosed.
According to the officer who did not want his name in print, an assessment carried out by a non governmental organisation shows that 32.0 per cent of primary schools pupils in Kaduna State have their classes in the open air.
“While 7.5 per cent of junior secondary schools students hold their classes in the open air, 3.4 per cent of senior secondary schools students hold classes in the open air,” he told LEADERSHIP.
The assessment report made available to LEADERSHIP revealed that 38 per cent of the primary schools in the Kaduna State are in need of major repairs.
According to the report, “64.9 per cent of the primary schools in the state have insufficient desk and chairs, 51.8 per cent do not have blackboards, 79.8 percent have no health facilities, and only 1.2 percent have pipe borne water. Only 12.5 percent of these primary schools have boreholes. 10.9 per cent of them depend on wells. As much as 84.5 percent of the primary schools have no toilet facilities. The pupil’s toilet ratio is 510 to 1.”
The assessment further revealed that 22 per cent of junior secondary schools are in need of major repairs, and that “of all these, 58.1 per cent do not have sufficient seats, 27.7 per cent had no good chalkboard, 7.5 percent hold their classes in the open air, and 20.1 percent have health facilities. The student-toilet ratio is 119 to 1.”
On the senior secondary schools, the report stated that “While 24 per cent of classrooms in senior secondary schools are in need of major repairs, 56.6 per cent have insufficient seats, 32.4 per cent have no good chalkboards, and 3.4 per cent hold classes in the open air and 8.4 per cent have no health facilities, 36 per cent of the senior secondary schools have no toilet facilities; with a student-toilet ratio being 83 to 1.”
