Iba housing estate secondary school contends with over crowded classroom

Over 124 Pupils Sit In A Class, Least Populated Has 77

For many pupils in public secondary school living in Iba Town and its surrounding communities, it is discomforting journeying to school daily because of the distance between their homes and school. This is because Iba Housing Estate Junior and Senior Secondary School is the only government owned day secondary school within the locality. The secondary school serves about eight highly populated communities on the corridor.

Despite the awkward experience navigating their way to school, they ended up learning in an unfriendly environment, as they are taught in over-crowded classrooms.

A Junior Secondary School (JSS) 3 pupil of the school who spoke with The Guardian revealed that there were 124 pupils in his class. He claimed that the other JSS 3 classes have more pupils when compared with his class. Another pupil in JSS 1D disclosed that there were 176 pupils in his class and there are JSS 1A to H. Also, a pupil in Senior Secondary School (SSS) 3E revealed that there were 77 pupils in her class and it has the least number of pupils within the SSS 3 A to E class in the school. They also revealed that there were not enough chairs and desk in the classrooms.

Although there is no record of the performances of the pupils in Iba Housing Estate Secondary School, studies have, however, shown that smaller class sizes produce positive social, emotional, and academic results of higher test scores, fewer dropouts, and level playing field for minorities and children living in poverty.

According to some of the pupils, for those whose parents can afford the daily transport fare, they spend between N100 and N200 daily on transport aside having to complement the journey with walking some distance. For some others, they walk the long distance to school and back home.

The President of Iba Housing Estate Residents Association, Comrade Tayo Kutelu, said it is a challenge the community has been grappling with since the return to democracy, as a result of the increasing population within the communities along the Iba Housing Estate corridor.

Kutelu said the government is sufficiently aware of the issue, but has not been able to adequately intervene to alleviate the suffering of the communities.

“Although government is trying, but you will appreciate one thing, this is the only secondary school within this vicinity; Iba, Igboelerin, agboroko, Ipaye, Iba town, Iba new site. The population kept increasing because of the adjoining communities, for instance, look at the whole of Peace Estate, Victory Estate, Progress Estate, there is no government owned secondary school there.

“It is only within Iba Housing Estate that there is a secondary school. Reason, the school is over crowded and becomes very difficult to control the population and it seems there is nothing we can do to alleviate the suffering of the pupils for now.

“Government has even tried to some extent, it built additional classrooms just after Sarah Sosan left, yet because of the peculiarity of the area, increasing population, we discovered that it has not helped. Thus, except there is a secondary school in Iba town, which would help to reduce the population of pupils coming towards Iba Housing Estate to seek secondary education. All the primary schools within Iba Housing Estate and in other communities around this corridor seek admission to the only secondary school in Iba Housing Estate. That is one of the major problem responsible for the over populated classes.

“If the state government cannot set up new secondary schools to cater for the huge population of pupils within Iba town and other communities adjoining Iba town and Iba Housing Estate seeking secondary education, additional block of classrooms could be constructed.”

On if there is an available space to construct new blocks of classrooms, he said there is a space to build a block of classrooms within the school. He also said that the state government could pull down the bungalow block of classrooms within the school premises to construct a storey-building block of classrooms to provide additional learning facility.

“If there is a synergy between the state and local government, there is enough space to build more blocks of classrooms in the primary school, which has a large expanse of unused area that can be seeded to the secondary since they shared fence. This is aside the secondary school also has a space that can still accommodate a block of classrooms,” he added .

Asked if there had been deliberate efforts to make the government and the communities’ representatives at state and federal aware of the over populated classrooms, Kutelu stated that they have been discussing the issue informally through its connection with government officials, but they may need to put it in writing so that government can be formally aware.

“We discussed it with Sarah Sosan and she promised to look into it with a view of resolving it. We did not discuss it with Oluranti Adebule, the immediate past deputy governor, who was also in charge of education. Our representatives at the federal and state are aware too.”

Attempt to get the state government to speak on why it has not addressed the over crowded challenge in the school through building additional classrooms or establish new school was not successful. A message was sent to the Public Affairs Officer of the Ministry of Education, Ganiu Lawal, but he was yet to respond to the message.