Akwa Ibom State Government has said that it has dedicated all inter-ministerial direct labour projects to the education sector in order to address infrastructural deficits in public schools.
Speaking during an interaction with newsmen in Uyo on Monday, the Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Comrade Ini Ememobong recalled that Governor Udom Emmanuel had declared a State of Emergency in the education sector, considering its inherited rot and negligence.
Ememobong said the government sent over 28,000 desks to public schools as some primary school pupils lacked such provisions in their classroom.
He listed other government infrastructure interventions to include: Perimeter fencing in schools, renovation of classroom blocks and assembly halls, as well as drilling of boreholes in schools.
Ememobong, who was accompanied by the Assistant Director in the Ministry of Information, Mr. Aniekan Ekong, said government had set an age limit for admission into public secondary schools at 12 years in order to check the vulnerability of students to the antics of cultists who lure innocent children to cult groups in government schools.
He said: “The age of perpetrators of cultism in public schools is a major challenge in fighting cultism in schools. Government is coming out with legislation to address it.
“We would also activate juvenile homes and moral rebirth as well as the placing of spies in public schools to check those who introduce cultism in our public schools.”
