GIANT STRIDES: ACHIEVEMENTS OF GOVERNOR Okezie Ikpeazu' THE EDUCATIONAL SECTOR.

Education

As part of our capacity building agenda, we launched the Education for Employment (E4E) scheme that has already produced 472 graduates with relevant skills in ICT, at Phase 1. Phase 2 of the program which is aimed at training 36,000 unemployed Abians in different skills will commence in September. For the first time in our state, a database of unemployed Abians has been compiled and we are taking verifiable actions to provide them with jobs using our recently launched Abia state job portal.

In partnership with Dangote group, a modern job center is under construction at Isiala Ngwa.

To further enhance the capacity and productivity of Abia teachers, we are partnering with Australian education solution providers to retrain them and enhance teaching efficiency. More than 800 teachers have benefited from this program.

A new teachers training facility has been opened at Umuahia to ensure continuous training of primary and secondary school teachers.

Under our watch, Abia State has maintained 1st position in WAEC and NECO examinations for consecutive 3 years as a result of increased monitoring and enhancement of private and public sector educational resources.

To motivate our teachers for better performance in our schools, we donated cars to best performing teachers from the 3 zones and also built staff quarters at Umuahia.

In consideration of the current socio-economic situation in the country, we reduced tuition fees at ABSU, Abiapoly and College of Education Arochukwu to support Abia parents and guardians.

Our homegrown free school feeding program was launched in 2015 and currently ongoing across the state. Abia State, under Ikpeazu, is the only state in the federation providing food for primary one to six school children.

Also our administration partnered with the private sector to provide free Made in Aba school sandals to over 2000 school children in the state. More will benefit from this program which also supports our Made in Aba promotion agenda.

In order to boost ICT education and stimulate interest in that area in our children from early age, we launched Free ICT and Coding training for primary and secondary schools in the state using the e-library at Umuahia as hub.

For the first time in our state, we launched and deployed a unified education platform for all schools in the state. Results and activities of all Abia school children can be monitored from one platform for private and public schools.

In fulfillment of our electoral promise, we are constructing 4 model schools (Abayi Aba, Obingwa, Umuahia and Ohafia) with nursery, primary and secondary schools in one location alongside sports facilities and teachers quarters. This we are able to execute because we paid our UBE counterpart fund of N2.8b.

359 new school classroom blocks are currently under construction in the state with more than 100 completed and ready for Commissioning.

In addition, we renovated/constructed 67 classroom blocks across the 3 Senatorial zones of the state. We sank 9 Boreholes and reticulated water supply to 43 school toilets.

To support regular monitoring of schools in rural and urban areas of the state we launched a new statewide education inspectors scheme and provided 42 motorcycles to enhance efficiency.

Our administration has reconstituted the state scholarship board and awarded tertiary education scholarships to best performing WASCE students in all the LGAs for 2 years.

A new education hub is emerging around the Owerrinta area with the government providing necessary infrastructure support to ensure the development of the biggest education cluster in Africa.

Courtesy: Abia State Ministry of Information.