Despite huge oil revenue, students still sit on bare floor to take lectures in Delta school

By Gabriel Oghenekaro

Students of 41-year-old Emiye Girls’ Grammar School in Oleh, headquarters of Isoko South Local Government, Delta state, still sit on bare floor to receive lectures despite huge oil revenue accruing to the state from 13% derivation.  

Advocate.ng which visited the school to get firsthand information on the position of things after first getting wind of the ugly situation on a viral post on Facebook, discovered that many of the classrooms had no single furniture, while in others cases; they were not commensurate with the numbers of students in the class.

Some students were visibly seen sitting on the bare floor to receive lessons while others were hanging on the classroom windows.

When the crew visited her office, to learn more about why a public school of such repute could not provide furniture sets for its students, the School Principal, Mrs Edherue A. denied comments for fear of being victimized by the state government.

However, some of the students who spoke to the media crew complained bitterly about the situation.

The Head Girl of the school, Miss Emmanuel Anthonia said, “The issues we are facing in Emiye Girls’ Grammar School are enormous, the learning environment is not conducive. Most of the classes lack chairs, students sit on the floor to learn which is not really good, our writing boards are very bad. So, we really want the government to come to our aid.

“We also want to use this medium to plead with the government to also assist us with school bus because this school is located at the end of the town and the cost of transportation to school is very high now.

Most people who wanted to attend this school could not because of the transportation. We also want to appeal to the government to assist us by providing facilities like clearing machine to help us maintain the environment. This school is a girl school and most of us don’t know how to clear, so we want government to help us.”

Also speaking, Afokeoghene Progress an SS 1 student said, “we don’t have boards, we don’t have chairs, some of us are sitting in the widow, our classes are bad, we don’t have windows, and we don’t have drinking water, even for the restroom which is even a luxury here as we don’t have one and if you need to use the toilet, you either do it in the bush or go home. If we want to drink or use water from inside the school, we must go outside the school compound which is not too good.

“We don’t have teachers for some subjects, like Security Studies, History, French, we need qualified teachers to teach us these subjects.”

Advocate.ng further gathered that the Chief Inspector of Education (C.I.E) in the local government who denied knowledge of the students sitting on bare floor resides in an official apartment in the school compound.

Oleh town, apart from being the headquarter of Isoko South, the current Managing Director of Delta States Oil Producing Area Development Commission (DESOPADEC), Bashorun Askia Ogieh, is from this local government which is also a major stakeholder in the Oil Mining and Lease (OML) 30 currently operated by Heritage, yet this girl school lies fallow in an era where stakeholders are advocating for Girls-Child-Education