The Educational Marvel of Governor Imoke – By Lloyd Ukwu

Posted by admin Articles, Columnists, Cross River, Lloyd Ukwu, NNP Columnists, State News Sunday, October 4th, 2015

By Lloyd Ukwu | Port-Harcourt, Nigeria | Oct. 4, 2015 – As of 2007, the quality of education in Cross River State was awful; academic standards were dishearteningly low. Following years of neglect, academic standards and educational facilities deteriorated to a disconcerting level. And the state joined the “infamous league of educationally backward states”. This alarming situation was evinced by the fact that most primary four and five pupils in the state could neither read effectively nor write simple correct sentence. The decay in the school system encouraged, especially in the secondary schools, examination malpractices and the acquisition of illicit grades. Lamentably, these were aided and abetted by some school principals, teachers and private school proprietors. Not surprisingly, the performance of students in the West African Examination Council (WAEC) and the National Examination Council (NECO) was abysmal. In the words of a former commissioner for education in the state, Professor Offiong Offiong, “The situation was horrible and something sweeping needed to be done about it.”

On his election as governor of Cross River State in 2007, Liyel Imoke adopted sweeping measures that transformed education in the state. The centerpiece of his effort to overhaul education in the state at the primary and secondary school levels was the Quality Control and Quality Assurance Measures (QCQAM). QCQAM encompassed a number of initiatives that brought quality control to education delivery in the primary and secondary schools. It involved first, the assessment of the level of decay in the educational system, and the adoption of strategies to resolve the problems. At the stage of “Needs Assessment”, seventy five percent of the primary and secondary schools across the state were monitored for six months. Data was collated and other information gathered on the state of affairs in these schools. Armed with the Need Assessment report, Governor Imoke went straight to work.

He adopted a three-prong approach to transform education from the primary school to the universities. The three-prong approach was: Infrastructural Development, Capacity Building and Discipline. New schools were built and existing ones were rehabilitated: school buildings, desks, instructional and learning facilities such as laboratories and libraries were renovated or installed. On capacity building, teachers were trained through workshops and seminars. National Certificate in Education (NCE) became the minimum qualification for teachers to teach in primary schools and a first degree for teaching in secondary schools.

Other capacity building initiatives included: read and write campaign; compulsory 2pm to 4pm prep for examination classes; holiday programs for examination classes; computerized continuous assessment; examination malpractice eradication project, production of government textbooks in all subject areas in primary and secondary schools (which were sold at subsidized rates); annual retraining of teachers, and further training for science and mathematics teachers. The read and write campaign addressed the problem of primary school pupil, even, in primary four and five not being able to read and write. Now, pupils in the state start reading and writing in primary two. To raise the academic standards in the schools, the state developed and enforced minimum standards for the establishment of schools; re-accredited private schools in the state, strengthened education inspectorate departments in the local governments, senatorial zones and ministry of education by hiring more school inspectors and making them more mobile and efficient with the provision of 25 Hilux vehicles.

Governor Imoke established an infrastructural standard for primary schools that is peculiar to the state: every primary school must have well designed classrooms (each, with the capacity to sit at least 35 pupils and equipped with modern desks), resource room, library, assembly hall for extracurricular activities, teachers’ room and a laboratory for basic sciences. The Imoke administration built 17 additional primary schools in hitherto inaccessible communities with no primary schools. This helped to increase primary school enrolment from 223, 200 in 2007 to 295,973 in 2015, a 32.47 per cent increase. In addition to the newly built schools, the government responded to this increase in enrolment in primary school with “a corresponding expansion in infrastructure through the Universal Basic Education (UBE) intervention”. Over 300 primary schools were completely renovated, and the number of classrooms increased from 6,113 to 9,689, and about 1, 245 new teachers recruited with the Federal Teachers Scheme.

At the secondary school level, Imoke expanded access to qualitative education by constructing 18 new secondary schools; increasing the number of secondary schools in the state from 248 in 2007 to 266 in 2015. In addition, 60 existing secondary schools were renovated and expanded with each school having adequate classrooms and four equipped laboratories (for Chemistry, Physics, Biology and ICT), staff rooms, libraries, assembly halls and recreational facilities. These accommodated the increased students’ enrolment from 93, 149 in 2007 to 143, 644 2014, an impressive increase of 54.21 per cent. For the sake of indigent students that could not ordinarily afford to register for the West African School Certificate (WASC) exams at the end of their secondary school education, the government of Liyel Imoke spent over N1bn registering students in public high schools for WASC examinations between 2007 and 2013. About N184m was spent on the same exercise for the year, 2015.

Despite the focus of his educational policies on the primary and secondary school levels, the former governor, Imoke, re-established the State College of Education at Akamkpa in 2008, established the Institute of Technology and Management (ITM) and increased the number of academic programs at the Cross River State University of Technology from 23 in 2007 to 39. He also expanded access to these tertiary education institutions for indigent students.

In spite of the financial challenges (occasioned by the loss of the state oil wells) of the administration of Governor Liyel Imoke, the former governor’s education policy, which created conducive learning environment for students, built capacity, imposed discipline and order on the school system and made education more accessible to more children paid off handsomely. For example, the performance of students in the state in the West Africa Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) improved from five per cent in 2007 to 56.6 per cent in 2014. The state’ performance, that ranked 29^th out of the 36 states in the country now ranks 6^th. And the state was also de-listed from examination malpractice prevalent states.

Lloyd Ukwu, a lawyer,writes from Port Harcourt, Nigeria

[email protected]

0802 317 4444

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