Service Compact with all Nigerians (SERVICOM) has expressed concern about the lack of teachers, poor learning environment among other challenges as major setback in some Federal Unity Schools across the country.
Mrs Nnenna Akajemeli, National Coordinator of SERVICOM, made this known when she presented the second phase of SERVICOM Compliance Evaluation (SCE) reports of 15 selected Federal Unity Schools to the Minister of Education in Abuja.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the overall objective of SCE is to identify gaps in service delivery in Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), and making recommendations for improvements.
“Today we are here to give the feedback on the evaluation carried out in 15 additional unity schools and in all, we have evaluated 49 schools out of 104 unity schools.
“Today we are here to give the feedback on the evaluation carried out in 15 additional unity schools and in all, we have evaluated 49 schools out of 104 unity schools.
“And these evaluations are done to measure and find out the quality and status of service delivery in the Unity Schools in line with the mandates in which they have been established.
“The evaluation is working to find out if the set objectives and mandates of establishing unity schools are being achieved.”
The SCE findings, she said, revealed that in some areas, some schools are doing well for instance, some of them have worn award such as best in some subjects and in WAEC and in NECO.
She, however, identified other weaknesses to include overcrowding of classes, lack of laboratories, insufficient equipment, some hostels in disrepair with broken ceilings, cracked walls, and broken windows.
Others are the deplorable states of toilet facilities, outdated books in some libraries among others.
The situation, the SERVICOM boss explained could impede effective teaching and learning, thereby affecting students’ performance during examinations.
“Students interacted with in some schools disclosed that there are instances of bullying; this could affect the mental health and academic performance of students.
“Interaction with stakeholders revealed shortage of teachers in various subjects such English, Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry among others in most of the schools visited. This leads to staff being overworked and could affect academic performance of students.”
The SERVICOM boss, therefore, recommended immediate quick fixes of some of the observed weaknesses and also in area of alternative means of power supply, deployment of teachers in key subjects identified, training and re-training of teachers, among others.
Responding, Mr Adamu Adamu, Minister of Education lauded SERVICOM assessment initiative, adding that its principles imbibing by MDAs as organizational culture for the needed improved service delivery in public service.
Represented by Dr David Adejo, Permanent Secretary in the ministry, Adamu said SERVICOM was initiated by the Federal Government as agency to facilitate improved service delivery, especially in the social sectors.
The minister commended SERVICOM for continuing to remain under the presidential directive to ensure that all MDAs continued to imbibe the SERVICOM culture to improve quality service delivery in Nigeria, saying its initiative is yielding the best result.
While tasking heads of schools to heed to the SERVICOM`s observations, he nevertheless, assured to work assiduously on identified gaps.
“From the SERVICOM report, we will reinforce laws and for us, it is important that the first point of call for an education teacher is to guarantee improvement in the classrooms.
“At the government level, we want to accept the fact that our teachers need more training.
“I have seen it personally at my interaction with some of them and the good luck is that government too is planning to reposition the teaching profession.”
He, however, assured the SERVICOM team to take all the recommendations seriously and see how to make progress in school of unity collages in the country. (NAN)
