Parents of pupils at the Local Education Authority (LEA) Primary School in Affa II community, Gudun-Karya ward of Kuje Area Council, have raised alarm over the condition of the school, warning that pupils and teachers are at risk as children continue to learn inside a mud-built classroom.
The concerned parents told Abuja Metro on Wednesday that the only classroom serving the school was constructed several years ago by members of the community using mud blocks due to the absence of government intervention.
They said the school currently has about 98 pupils but operates with only one classroom, one teacher and the headmaster, who assists in teaching the children.
A parent, Zakari Musa, described the situation as unfortunate, noting that the community had struggled for years to provide basic education for its children despite poor infrastructure and lack of support from authorities.
‘It is unfortunate that a community with close to 100 pupils still has no standard school building. The only classroom was built by the community with mud blocks, whereas government should ordinarily have intervened,’ he said.
He lamented that the absence of conducive learning facilities continues to hinder efforts by parents to provide quality education for their children.
Also speaking, chairman of the Parents Teachers Association (PTA), Danjuma Bako, expressed concern over the poor condition of the school, saying pupils had been forced to learn under unsafe and unhealthy conditions for years.
According to him, repeated appeals to the council authorities and the Local Education Authority (LEA) management for intervention had yet to yield meaningful results.
Bako recalled that the Chairman of the council, Abdullahi Suleiman Sabo, visited the school last year after receiving complaints and promised to address the challenges facing the school.
‘Unfortunately, nothing has been done since that visit,’ he said.
He added that the situation has become more dangerous with the onset of the rainy season, warning that the aging mud structure could collapse and endanger the lives of pupils and teachers.
‘Because we are already in the rainy season, the classroom built with mud blocks now poses a serious threat to the children and teachers,’ he stated.
The PTA chairman also decried the shortage of furniture and teaching materials in the school.
He, however, acknowledged the intervention of a Senior Special Assistant to the President, Mrs. Abiodun Essie, who visited the school in November 2024 after seeing reports about its condition on social media and donated uniforms, school bags and writing materials to the pupils.
Bako said despite such gestures from individuals, the community still urgently requires government intervention, including construction of a standard classroom block and deployment of additional teachers.
Reacting to the concerns, a senior official in the education department of the council, Michael Moses, said the construction of a standard school for the community had already been captured in the council’s budget.
Similarly, a senior official at the Federal Capital Territory Universal Basic Education Board (FCT-UBEB), who spoke anonymously, disclosed that plans for the construction of additional classrooms and recruitment of more teachers had also been included in the budget.