AGDC warns on the state of Education in Edo State

The After School Graduate Development Center (AGDC), sponsored by the TY Danjuma Foundation, yesterday, raised the alarm over what it described as the deplorable state of the education sector in Edo State, saying that from the survey carried out by the organization, the educational sector in the state would have collapsed if not for the assistance of NYSC members.

The group described as imbalance in the posting of teachers and construction of school buildings in urban and rural areas in the state despite the enormous infrastructural investment in the education sector in the state, asserting that if things continue in this manner, the state may not be able to produce employable graduates in the nearest future.

In a communiqué by the Research, Monitoring and Evaluation Director of AGDC, Jennifer Obado and the Project Coordinator, TYDF/AGDC, Brian Orji, the Foundation said students teacher ratio in the rural area was an average of 160 students to one teacher while in the urban areas, it was a case of one teacher to 40 to 50 students, an indication that there were more teachers in the urban than rural areas.

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The group also observed that most of the staff in secondary schools in the rural areas are members of the National Youths Service Corps (NYSC) whose services were paid for by the schools' Parents Teachers Association (PTA).They observed that secondary schools were being grossly underfunded in the state with a monthly grant of between N4, 000 to N7, 000 depending on the location of the school just as they lamented the dilapidated state of buildings in most secondary schools visited in 10 of the 18 local government councils selected for the research.

Meanwhile, 2,000 students from 14 institutions, including secondary and tertiary institutions in the state, have benefited from the Wing Community Development Project, sponsored by the T.Y. Danjuma Foundation.