Public and public mission Primary and Secondary Schools in Anambra State are experiencing an increase in pupils and student’s enrollment because of the free education policy of Governor Chukwuma Soludo.
Governor Soludo last year, declared a free education policy for pupils and students of Junior Secondary Schools in Anambra State while the Senior Secondary School students are to pay five thousand naira only as school fees, all in the efforts to cushion the effects of fuel subsidy removal.
Anambra Broadcasting Service Education Correspondent, Queen Anigbogu went around town to ascertain the impact of the policy on student enrollment in schools.
At the basic level, ABS news crew gathered that before the Free Education policy, Anambra State Universal Basic Education had pupil’s enrollment in 2022 to be one hundred and eighty-three thousand, three hundred and ninety- five but after the declaration of Free Education policy last year, the number of pupils increased to two hundred and sixty-seven thousand, two hundred and nine which is an additional eighty-three thousand, eight hundred and fourteen new pupils and students and still counting.
From the Post Primary Schools Service Commission in charge of secondary schools, student enrollment before the declaration was ninety-eight thousand, seven hundred and forty but after the declaration, it increased to one hundred and sixty thousand, eight hundred and eighty-eight, an additional sixty-two thousand, one hundred and forty-eight new students.
It was gathered that a good number of out-of-school children are now back in school as well as many who were previously in private schools have now resumed in public schools because of the free education policy of the Soludo administration.
Speaking to the ABS, the Chairman, Post Primary Schools Service Commission, PPSSC, Awka, Professor Nkechi Ikediugwu gave a breakdown of the student’s enrollment in some of the schools in Awka and Onitsha educational zones, pointing out that the explosion of students enrollment in Anambra schools cuts across the state, including schools in the rural areas.
She explained that the state government is aware that such an explosion will occur and therefore has been tackling the issues of inadequate and dilapidated infrastructures as well as lack of teachers in some schools, even as she encouraged parents not to hesitate to bring their children to public schools.
The Chairman, Anambra State Universal Basic Education Board, ASUBEB, Dr Vera Nwadinobi reiterated that Governor Soludo cleared the backlog of the 2019,2020, and 2021 counterpart funding that would match the one from, UBEC, to make funds available for renovation and rehabilitation of dilapidated school structures as the Governor is passionate about providing conducive teaching and learning environment for Anambra school children.
She allayed the fears of parents on the absence of monitoring of activities in public schools by saying that a body called Community Quality Assurance Supervisors and monitoring officers have been instituted to checkmate inappropriate activities in government schools.
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