When Philips Consulting released its flawed report, Anambra had put forward a robust denunciation backed by irrefutable facts and records that show that the state’s educational sector has considerably improved under Governor Chukwuma Soludo rather than regressed.
Today, more evidence has emerged. The 2025 President’s Teachers and Schools Excellence Award, recently at Eagles Square Abuja by the Minister of Education, Dr. Olatunji Alausa, has once again spotlighted Anambra’s unparalleled excellence in Nigeria’s educational landscape. With an astonishing nine awards sweeping across public and private schools, teachers and administrators, this haul is a resounding affirmation of Governor Chukwuma Soludo’s visionary polices facilitating the enabling environment for educational excellence.
Each of these academic luminaries walked away, in addition to other prizes, with a laptop as symbolic reward for their excellence.
These awards, bestowed after rigorous national evaluations, reflect a deliberate strategy under Governor Soludo to elevate education from rhetoric to reality. Since assuming office, the governor has championed free education from nursery to JSS three, extending it to SS three in 2024 across all public schools, a policy that has driven a fifty per cent surge in public schools’ enrolments, reducing out-of-school children to a mere two point nine per cent, the lowest in Nigeria according to UNESCO in 2023 but current indications show it is almost at zero percent as at today.
The recruitment of eight thousand, one hundred and fifteen thousand teachers in his first two years, coupled with massive investments in infrastructure and technology, has also created a fertile ground for excellence. It is no coincidence that Anambra’s students and schools continue to dominate not just nationally but globally, from winning the 2023 International Debate Championship in Malaysia to securing gold in the 2024 World Affairs Challenge and topping the 2025 UTME with scores like Okeke Chinedu Christian’s nation-leading three hundred and seventy-five.
Yet, amid this cascade of empirical successes, PCL’s report peddles a narrative of decline that borders on misinformation which has fed the desperation of paranoid politicians. Their ranking of Anambra at thirty-third in education infrastructure was a clear indication of methodological malpractice.
Critics exploiting PCL’s report to label Governor Soludo’s tenure a failure obviously love entertaining negative false narratives about their state, ignoring the glaring truth that Anambra’s education sector is soaring. Governor Soludo, the economic technocrat and pragmatic visionary, has applied a ‘Doing More with Less’ ethos to maximise impact, fostering an ecosystem where public and private institutions thrive in tandem. The nine awards today are the latest chapter in an evolving story of sustained progress, from debate championships to ICT innovations from the policy-driven momentum Governor Soludo has unleashed.
With the November state governorship election fast approaching, Ndi Anambra must beware of microwave propaganda and the mischief of flawed ratings that undermine genuine governance.
Our new awardees carry the promise of a brighter future that Governor Soludo will meticulously continue to nurture. Nigeria is watching and perhaps learning, that true excellence is not ranked in some fancy consulting offices; it is nurtured in classrooms, celebrated in national arenas, and defended against the tides of misinformation. Anambra is rising, and it will continue to lead the way.
