As the first tenure of Governor Chukwuma Soludo draws to an end, the Anambra State Commissioner for Education, Professor Ngozi Chuma-Udeh, has described Soludo’s administration as revolutionary in system rebuilding, restructuring, and overhauling.
She stated this during an interview with journalists in her office at the Jerome Udoji Secretariat, Awka, where she noted that Anambra State has the lowest number of out-of-school children across Africa.
Professor Chuma-Udeh enumerated Governor Soludo’s achievements in the education sector to include the abolition of the phenomenon of schools without teachers by employing 8,115 teachers, meeting global standards with a ratio of 26 pupils to one teacher in primary schools and 30 students to one teacher in secondary schools.
She added that one of the most important achievements in the education sector is the free education policy, which has brought equitable and quality education to the doorstep of every Anambra child, the massive reconstruction of schools following the inheritance of moribund educational infrastructure, and the establishment of 21 smart schools aimed at equipping Anambra children with quality education that will make them productive at home and competitive abroad.
Professor Chuma-Udeh maintained that the Governor has done much in the education sector, including improving the welfare of teachers whose salaries and other emoluments are paid as and when due, noting that the Governor is deeply appreciated.
On her expectations from Governor Soludo in his second tenure, the Education Commissioner called for an expansion of the smart schools so that every child will benefit from them, the institutionalization of the free education policy so that the educational gap between the rich and the poor will be closed, as well as more school infrastructure development to ensure that communities that do not have schools will have them.
