Maxwell Otey, an 18-year-old pupil of Migrant Secondary School, New Ekuri, a suburb of Cross River State, nurses a lifetime ambition of becoming a lawyer. But his hope began to dim last year when teachers started exiting the school for various reasons. All the teachers eventually left, leaving behind only the principal and his assistant.
The situation has forced the pupils to drop out of school.
‘I stopped going to school last year. It is almost two years since I dropped out,’ Maxwell said as he bemoaned the stark darkness that has been cast on his dreams and aspirations.
‘I wish to study Law in the university, but that appears impossible now since I am no longer going to school,’ he added.
Asked why he had not deem it necessary to continue his education in one of the neighbouring communities, Maxwell said: ‘My parents are cassava farmers. They have no money to send me to school outside this community.’
In the last two years that he dropped out of school, Maxwell has been loitering around the community as he said he had not been gainfully engaged in any productive venture. ‘I have not been doing anything since I stopped going to school,’ he said.
Samuel Okey, another 18-year-old, said that he also dropped out of school last year while he was in SS1. ‘I dropped out because we didn’t have teachers,’ he said.
According to him, there were four teachers in the school while he was in JSS 3. ‘Two of the teachers were transferred without being replaced. We were left with the principal and the vice principal,’ he said.
Dropping out of school has not been good experience for the teenager, who said he was always worried by the prospects of not achieving his dream of surpassing the level his parents attained.
He said: ‘I feel very sad I am out of school and doing nothing. For almost two years, I have been doing nothing.
‘My siblings are also not going to school anymore. I have two siblings and all of us are out of school.’
A 19-year-old ex-pupil who gave his name as ThankGod Clement, said the regrettable state of learning in the school has put his dream of becoming a teacher in danger.
According to him, ‘the last time I went to school was in 2024. I dropped out because there was no teacher to teach and the school became so boring that it made some students leave the community to go to school in other places. We that our parents don’t have money to send us to school outside the community have to drop out. We have stayed back to manage life in our community.’
In spite of the odds around him, ThankGod still earnestly desires to go back to school. ‘I wish to be a teacher later in life. I have the skill. I have been watching the way they teach and I always say in my mind that when I grow up I will like to be like them. If the school doesn’t come back to the standard that I am expecting, if it doesn’t, I may not realize my dream of becoming a teacher. I am just praying that God should just make a way so that we can continue here. If that does not happen, I pray that God will make a way for me to go out to realize my ambition.’
In the last one year that he has been out of school, ThankGod said : ‘I have been hustling to raise money so that when the resume resumes, I can pay my school fees.I go to the bush and pluck afan and sell. I make between N3, 000 and N4, 000 daily. I always save part of the money so that I can use it to go to school subsequently.’
Also rueing his untimely exit from school, Celestine Etta, a 17-year-old, said: ‘I am no longer going to school because there are no teachers to teach us.
‘I was in SS1 before I dropped out. I am still in the village doing nothing.
‘The only thing I do is to help my parents with house chores and farm work.’
Like Samuel, he said: ‘I feel very sad that I am no longer going to school. My other siblings are also not going to school.
‘There is no other secondary school in the community. The place where there are schools is Akamkpa, the local government area. From here to Akamkpa is about N20,000 to go and N20,000 to return.’
Celestine’s father was, however full of sadness about the son’s and other pupils’plight when he spoke with our correspondent.
Corroborating the son’s remarks, the father said: ‘There are no teachers in the school. They only have the vice principal and the principal. The pupils have not been going to school since last year.’
Asked what his son has been doing since he dropped out of school, he said: ‘My son does nothing. I don’t have the resources to make him go to school outside our community.
‘If he wants to go from New Ekuri to Akamkpa, he will be spending a fortune every day.
‘From here to Ochon will take three hours, and it costs between N11, 000 and N12, 000 because of the bad road. From Ochon to Akamkpa will cost between N8, 000 and N10,000. So going will cost about N20, 000 and coming back will cost another N20,000.’
Speaking on the efforts made by the community to rectify the challenge, he said: ‘When our clan head went to Calabar to complain that we don’t have teachers in the school, they promised to send teachers. But up until now, we have not seen any teacher.’
With the state government failing to send teachers to the school and worried about the dark cloud that hangs over the academic dreams and future of their children, the community recently engaged natives of the community to teach the children.
Unfortunately, many of the pupils who have dropped out of school are reluctant to return.
One of the PTA teachers, Nathaniel Okon, said: ‘We are three PTA teachers and two government teachers including the principal and vice principal in the school. The school had been shut down since January this year because there were no teachers. Now, the clan head and the community have asked us to come back.’
Explaining why the teachers sent in by the state government usually abandon the school, he said: ‘Because of the deplorable state of the road, some of them are afraid to come.
‘Some wrote retirement letters to the government, while some of them even went back without the consent of the government. The school is suffering because of lack of teachers. Some of the pupils whose parents don’t have what it takes to send them outside are here in the community.
‘If we have teachers, those students can come back. We had about 10 pupils in attendance last week.
‘Others are still at home waiting for who will bell the cat. Those are the common challenges that we have.
‘I believe that now that we have started, there will be improvement as we go on.
‘Some parents said they will not send their children to school if there are no teachers.’
He noted that ‘some of us who are natives are here because we want our community to grow educationally. I graduated from the University of Calabar. I came down to the community to help. I am being paid N20, 000 but we are trying to negotiate so that they can increase it. It is a challenge but it is a sacrifice on our part. When I come back from school, I go to my farm. Even when it is 2 o’clock, I defy the hot sun and go to the farm. I really don’t care. It is just a sacrifice.’
Speaking on the dilapidated state of the buildings, he said: ‘Some of our classrooms have broken down as you can see. We have made arrangements for the renovation.
‘We are making efforts for the pupils to have a conducive learning environment.
‘Everything is done by the community. An NGO recently gave us benches and chairs.’
The Clan Head of Ekuri Clan and Village Head of New Ekuri, Chief Abel Egbe, is saddened by the state of the Migrant Secondary School and the implications for educational development of the community and the children.
Before government took over the management of the school and renamed it, Chief Egbe said: It had teachers when it was Community Secondary School. Then, the students were up to 96 .
‘This Migrant Secondary School thing came when the government decided to take over the school and sent me three teachers, including the principal.
Initially, we were happy. I also employed three PTA teachers to add so that they could run their subjects and everything smoothly, and the school was okay.
‘But later, the government decided to transfer three teachers out of the school, leaving only one teacher. How would one teacher run from JSS1 to Ss3?
The one that I employed was from Abi. He was the one that was teaching pure science subjects.
‘It was this community that was taking care of him. We gave him food and accommodation, among other things. He was happy and stayed to teach the children.’
Chief Egbe, however, said after some time, ‘the teacher became sick and injected himself.
‘Before we could discover that he was sick, the injection had gone so much into his system. We could not help, and he eventually died.
‘So, from that time, the government has not supplied teachers and parents cannot allow their children to remain there.
‘When lectures are supposed to be going on, there would be no teachers to teach them.
‘Those are the challenges we are facing.’
As the leader of the community, he is disturbed by the mass drop out of pupils in the community from school.
He said: ‘I am even crying now. That is the reason for the falling standard of education in the community.
If children are no longer going to school, how do you think the community will grow? The children will no longer be in the way they’re supposed to be measured with other children outside.
‘There will be problems in the community. The children will become stubborn because they are not educated.
‘That is why we have all these problems of cultism, because the ones that are doing those things are not educated.
‘We already have the challenge of cultism in the community. Yes, we do.
‘Some of the children are not trained.
They remain in the community, and then they do what they like.
‘Some of them don’t even stay in the same house with their parents. They stay on their own and do what they like.
‘If those children were in school and they had been trained, they would not have been doing all those things. They would have been focused on their education.’
From the body language of the community members, Chief Egbe said, ‘parents are still looking forward to seeing if teachers will come so that they can retain their children without going out again.
‘We now have the school principal and vice-principal.We have three PTA teachers but we have employed one and two are still waiting to be employed.
‘We also wanted science subject teachers so that they would be able to run the school well.’
He further said: ‘Now that we are going to be employing PTA teachers, it is the community that will be paying them. That is the problem.
‘Initially, when we were employing PTA teachers, and we knew that government teachers were not there, what we used to do was that after collecting school fees from the students, we would use it to pay the teachers.
‘Now, we hope to get money to pay them by levying ourselves. The levy is according to age groups by age groups, or we can do it by asking women, youth and men to pay a certain amount.’
Reliving his challenges with state schools board, Chief Egbe said: ‘When the school board called me, they said they learnt that parents have moved out their children from the school since the government has transferred all the teachers.
‘They wanted to close the school. How do you close the school instead of sending us teachers?
‘I told them to give me teachers who would go to teach in the school so that parents will allow their children to come back to the village.
‘I told them they were the cause of the problem for transferring all the teachers from my school.’
Confirming claims that pupils wishing to go to the local government area to school will pay as much as N40,000 daily, he said: ‘I paid N20,000 to get to Akamkpa yesterday. Yes, It is between N18,000 and N20,000.
‘If you carry a load, it is exactly N20,000. To go and come back is like N36,000.’
As part of its efforts towards making education accessible to every child and stemming the high number of out-of-school pupils in the state, the Cross River State Government in 2006 signed into law the bill for free education for all primary and secondary school pupils. Findings from New Ekuri, however, showed that the law was a complete ruse as pupils in the state still pay fees.
Unfortunately, the payment has not been coming with infrastructure upgrade in the schools.
This much was confirmed by the former Executive Chairman of the State Universal Education Board (SUBEB), Elder Esu Effiong Esu, in August 2024.
Acknowledging the challenges plaguing most public schools in the state while briefing journalists, he said: ‘They are schools in Cross River that are in very bad shapes.
‘Some have no roads. In some, children sit on the floor.
‘We will ensure that all this become a thing of the past.
‘We’ll improve enrollment and infrastructure, after needs assessment, work plan, head to Abuja for approval, and return to get the job done.’
Lofty as the promise sounded, the people of New Ekuri are still without teachers and basic infrastructure.
The state Commissioner for Education, Sen Prof Steve Odey, in a terse response to our WhatsAPP message last Friday regarding the plight of the pupils and the community in general said: ‘I will find out from my Education Secretary what is going on there pls. Thanks.’
One week after making the promise, the commissioner didn’t provide any information about the anticipated feedback from the education secretary.
When our correspondent reached out to him again yesterday via WhatsApp message, the commissioner didn’t provide any response.
Checks showed that the message was delivered to him at 2.30pm and read by him at 2.53pm.