Tingling The Government’s Ears: The Re-echoing Of Ankpa Owukpa Educational Plight -By Agbo Michael Onoja

The members of Ankpa Owukpa community are calling on the stake holders in Benue state educational sector, the Commissioner of education, Dr. Sarwuan Tarnongo, Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) secretary, Agbo Ochekpe for a quick intervention to rescue and revive LGEA Primary School, Ankpa Owukpa.

The 46 years old LGEA Primary School, Ankpa Owukpa in Ogbadibo LGA, the last and only surviving government establishment in Ankpa Owukpa is gradually waning out of existence due to lack of teachers and decaying infrastructural facilities culminated with children dropping out of school as there is no teacher to teach them. It’s gradual waning out of existence and the Ankpa’s pitiful condition that is getting void of government presence calls for government’s quick intervention.

The current state of the dilapidated structures in the aforementioned primary school with leaking roofs, broken and bent walls are threats to life signaling colossal damage capable of claiming the lives of the pupils and the teacher.

In an interview with the Headmistress of the school, Mrs. Maria Ishalu who doubles as the class teacher of primary 5 and 6 (the only existing classes in the school) and the only teacher, she disclosed that like her predecessors, she has been writing to the appropriate authority for years on the above highlighted physical infrastructural and human resource needs of the school with graphics as ocular prove showing the leaking roofs, the fallen walls and the only one existing three- room structure that is on the verge of collapsing which doubles as death trap but got no result rather than government silence over 15 years of waiting and continuous writing. She further said that the sustenance of the school has been the efforts of the community for years including the provision of the available dilapidated facilities.

The school was established in the year 1976 and in 1979 it had 312 pupils in 4 classes and 500 pupils in 1999.

As at 2001 to 2008, the primary school had 9 class rooms, 8 teachers, 2 rooms for administrative offices with over 550 pupils across the classes and a hundred in 2021 but now, the total population of the School as at this July 2022 stands at fourthy-three compared to 2021 that it was a hundred and over five hundred and fifty in 2006 as many children has dropped out of school for lack of teachers.

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