Stephen Odey, Cross River State Commissioner for Education, has shut down three schools operating illegally in the state.
The three schools, Glorious Vision Academy and Dynamic Premiere Academy, both in Ugep as well as Wealth Academy Nursery/Primary School Apiapum, Obubra LGA, were shut down after Odey and his team, who embarked an unannounced visit to the LGAs, discovered that the schools’ operations did not comply with the Ministry’s clearly stated operating guidelines for schools in the state.
Specifically, the team discovered that in the three schools, the conditions for learning were unconducive and children were accommodated in unhealthy, dilapidated structures, with no windows, doors or clearly defined security measures in place. Odey was emphatic that other schools not visited in the state, may suffer the same fate, if their operations do not comply with the Ministry’s guidelines for operation of schools.
On the large number of unqualified teachers found in both schools, Odey frowned at this development while pointing to the negative effect the recruitment of unqualified teachers has on the state’s educational sector.
At the Community Secondary School, Apiapum, Obubra LGA, the Commissioner inspected proceedings at the WAEC Examination centre in the school, urging students there to put in their best and pass excellently, as a reciprocal gesture to the kindness shown by state governor, Bassey Otu, in registering indigent students of the state for the WAEC conducted examination.