Parents in Anambra State are besieging smart schools in the state and even threatening the principals, all in a bid to get their children registered in the schools to enable them enjoy the free ICT-driven teaching and learning obtainable in such schools.
The Chairman, Post Primary Schools Service Commission (PPSSC), Professor Nkechi Ikediugwu, who revealed this during an interview with journalists in her office in Awka, also disclosed that some communities are equally building schools and handing them over to the Anambra State Government so that their children will enjoy the free education policy of the Soludo administration.
Professor Ikediugwu, speaking on the achievements of Governor Chukwuma Soludo in the education sector in the last four years, noted that the free education policy has increased the student population from one hundred and three thousand to one hundred and eighty-eight thousand, four hundred and fifty-five students, an eighty-three percent increase.
Other achievements, according to her, include the recruitment of 8,115 teachers, improved teachers’ welfare, the establishment of 22 smart schools, distribution of ICT gadgets to schools, renovation of schools, distribution of science equipment to schools, the abolition of Monday sit-at-home, and many more.
On her expectations from the Governor in his second tenure, Professor Ikediugwu, while deeply appreciating him for what he has done so far, appealed that the number of smart schools should be increased from one in a local government area to five in each council area; that science equipment, which was distributed to 60 schools out of the 274 secondary schools in the state, should be increased so that others will get theirs; and that more teachers should be employed to replace those who are retiring.
