Children of the Okpella community in Edo State are learning under a pitiable deplorable condition, sitting on the bare floor in classrooms as the government under the supervision of Mr. Godwin Obaseki, the State Governor, has failed to provide a decent education.
The Idodo 2 Primary School located at Okpella community in Etsako East Local Government Area of Edo State, is highly deplorable with the children sitting on the floor in the classrooms because there are no chairs for them to sit.
Etsako East Local Area where the school is located has a population of over 200,000 inhabitants with many of them peasant farmers. An indication that many children depend on this school for formal education.
This is the situation in Edo State, even as the government of Mr. Obaseki in just one year claims to have spent the sum of N2 billion on Basic Education.
The Obaseki Government in 2020 allocated the sum of N2 billion to the Edo Basic Education Sector Transformation programme (Edo BEST) under the Ministry of Education.
This is an initiative the government claims will allow for a free and compulsory education programme and to provide every child of school age resident in Edo State, regardless of the state of origin, access to quality education from primary up to junior secondary school.
Despite a huge amount of money the Obaseki government claims to have spent on education, many public schools across communities in the state are in a pitiable deplorable condition with Idodo 2 Primary School in Okpella, Etsako East LGA, being one of them.
Tracka, a public accountability organization that exposed the pitiable deplorable condition of the school, has since appealed to the Edo State Government under the supervision of Mr. Godwin Obaseki to fix it.
Mr. Wilfred Malik, a resident of Okpella, who spoke to MAWA-Foundation, said Edo State has a huge number of dilapidated schools, he recounted how many public schools are in the rural communities and semi-urban centres are in a pitiable condition that needs urgent attention to fix them for decent learning.