School teachers posted to Yelwan-Mutari, a community in Miri District of Bauchi Local Government Area are boycotting classes and denying pupils access to basic education, WikkiTimes can report.
Yelwan-Mutari Primary School has a population of over 250 pupils, but the school is becoming its own shadow as its classrooms and staff offices become an eye sore.
WikkiTimes learnt that there wasn’t a single classroom or office to shield either teachers or pupils in the school. Teachers posted to Yelwan-Mutari cannot endure toiling the deplorable road leading to the community every day to teach in an environment that does not support teaching and learning.
Parents send children to school daily to play in a vast bushy field that endangers their lives. Pupils from the community who are committed to learning; do so in an unfriendly environment.
Yakubu Garba, village of Head of Yelwan-Mutari said a wind blew up the school over three years ago. Despite repeated complaints to authorities, the poor condition of the school keeps deteriorating as pupils’ enrolment grows continuously.
“Oftentimes you visit the school, you see pupils playing without teachers to teach and guide them,” the monarch told WikkiTimes. “Newly posted teachers to the school do not report to work as they should because there is neither office nor class to teach the pupils. Once a teacher visited Yelwan-Mutari for the first time, he never returns again.”
“We have a lot of children in the community who are of school age but even if parents send them to school they only ended up going there to play and return home when they are tired,” he said.
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Worried by the state of their school, the community constituted a committee to mobilise support to reconstruct the school but its efforts proved abortive.
Muhammed Abdullahi, Information Officer, Bauchi State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), said efforts are underway to reconstruct the school to give way for smooth teaching and learning in the area.
He, however, called on members of the community to ensure timely and prompt reports of such incidences to the board for expedient action to be taken.
