Omenugha: How Public Education Has Been Re-engineered in Anambra

Prof. Kate Omenugha is the Commissioner for Basic Education in Anambra. She is the first professor of Gender and Communications in Nigeria. In this interview with Funmi Ogundare, she explained the Anambra government’s contribution to ensure that education is accessible to more people in the state. She also emphasised why Anambra must embark on a public-private partnership

How did you address the problems of access to quality basic education in Anambra?

Anambra was 30 on August 27. Part of what we are doing to celebrate is a day with education builders. These are people that have contributed in so many ways to education in the state. This administration is a period of consolidation of education. The state has many great men and women; the likes of Chief Emeka Anyaoku, Chinua Achebe, Emegwali, Prof. Charles Soludo, Prof. Dora Akunyili and Chimamanda Adichie. So Anambra state has done well as far as education is concerned. When the governor came into office, what he has done was to consolidate on the gains of the past and bring the state into the limelight and ensure that education is accessible to a greater number of people. What he has told me is that I should give education that is credible and qualitative. We have our strategic objectives clearly defined; that the learning needs of all must be met through equitable distribution of resources and learning of lifelong skills and ensuring that we are one of the three top states with the lowest illiteracy rate.

What steps did you take to carry stakeholders along?

What we had done over the years were teachers’ engagements. We have also worked with NGOs and civil societies; worked and partnered the church and other education stakeholders. Contrary to what people think about the literacy level in Anambra state, that it is about 96 or 97 per cent when you begin to disaggregate that data, you find out that some parts of the state are not even as learned or educated as other people. We have identified five local government areas in the state that are like that in terms of access: we have identified Awka North, Anambra East, Anambra West, Ogbaru, and Ayamelum. The government has put in a lot of searchlight in that area. We are paying 20 per cent of the basic salary to teachers to be retained in that area and giving more incentives because many are riverine areas. The governor has bought boots for access and mobility. We have identified brilliant but indigent students, and we were able to bring out 107 of them upland and put them in one of the best schools. We are paying 100 per cent in scholarships. Nature and nurture are two things that make human beings. Those areas are mostly agrarian; they are mostly fishermen and women. The poverty indices are quite high. All these things are affecting them in education, so we felt we could train some of them to give back to society.

How would you describe the impact of access to education?

If you take those students that we brought out, some of them were at their very lowest ebb, and suddenly, we saw a lot of them scoring ‘A’s in the subjects. To us, that is an indication that the strategy is actually working for us. It also depends on how the future government can take that up. Governor Willie Obiano is providing for their education up to the university level. That is where we are heading. You see some of them now participating in quizzes and debates that we didn’t have before. So for us, if we are to assess the impact, we can beat our chest that at least we are making some significant progress in those areas.

Any other initiatives introduced by the government to bolster the education system?

In 2014, when Chief Willie Obiano came into office, during the first retreat he had with the exco members and political appointees, we designed what we called ‘our shared values’; 10 of them. To make a positive impact on everyone I meet, and everywhere I go. To be a solution provider and not be a part of the problem to be solved. To be a role model worthy of emulation. To put in my best in all, I do particularly in things I am naturally good at. To do the right things at all times regardless of who is doing the wrong things. To value time and make the best use of it, show respect through my ways and actions. To consciously build a great legacy starting now, today, and every day. To live a life of integrity and honour. And to make my family, state and nation, and God proud, so help me, God. If you go to the remotest part of Anambra State, everybody has been following it to the letter. For us, education is about ideology. It is what you believe in that you profess and what you profess that you do. We have started inculcating the ‘can do’ spirit in our students. We have our dictum, ‘nothing is impossible’.

We try to show that they can do anything, which is why a lot of children are taking up the challenge of global competitiveness. In 2018, the Regina Pacis Girls won the technovation challenge in Silicon Valley, San Francisco, USA. They won gold medals, St. John Technical College also won a bronze medal in Tunisia. When we went to Singapore for the first Nigerian-Singapore debate competition in 2015, we beat the Khartoun Convent School over there, and we won medals for the best team, the best speaker, and overall best team. When we went to the World Debates Championship in Indonesia, Anambra State was among the team Nigeria that beat Barbados in the preliminary debates. We tell ourselves that if our children can go out there and shine, that means that when we are given global competitiveness, they are no longer afraid to go for global competitions. They look out for these things themselves. Recently, our technical college in Nkpo went for a competition in Asaba and beat every other state hands down, and they are representing Nigeria in the United Arab Emirates in Dubai this year. When I look at these things, I ask myself: how did this change? It is the drive that this government has given to education. It is about the can-do spirit that we have instilled in our children. That is what has happened.

How is girl-child education treated in Anambra?

Girls’ education is taken very seriously. In that area, we picked up to 60 per cent of girls and 40 per cent of boys. In those areas, the girls actually suffer because the state used to have the boy-child challenge. The boys were not going to school, but now they do. In the five areas I talked about, the girls are the ones that do not go to school. We researched girl-child education in 2000 when we studied about 42 households, and we were able to find out some of the things that happened in that area that were impediments to girl-child education.

Unemployment is rife in Nigeria. How has Anambra enhanced technical colleges for skilled manpower?

One of the things the governor did when he came in was to give free tuition to those students from NTC one to three, and it has raised the number of people going into technical colleges. Secondly, he revamped the technical colleges. When we came in, none of the colleges was registered with National Board for Technical Education (NBTE), so we started revamping. We used to have 11 technical colleges, and we added one to make it 12. Now, we are building 750 capacity hostels for all the technical colleges in the state. We are completing and commissioning it this year. GTC Onitsha, GTC Umueri, and GTC Umuchu will be commissioned in two weeks, while GTC Ogidi, GTC Umunze, GTC Alor, GTC Enugwu Agidi will be ready for commissioning by the end of September. GTC Ossomala and GTC Utuh will be ready for commissioning by the first week of October. That is one of the things we are doing in technical colleges. We have done a whole lot of MoU and partnerships with the private sector. We have our partnership with Innoson Motors, which is currently training the students on bodybuilding and maintenance of vehicles for the completion of their courses. We also have a lot of MoUs in the hospitality industry for those who are doing catering craft. We also have those who are working on road construction. So these are partnerships that we have done over time. Our target is to ensure that students have hands-on experience. Beyond that, we took more than 20 of our technical college teachers to Singapore to learn their model of Technical and Vocational Education (TVE). Singapore has zero unemployment. Our teachers were able to learn one or two things about how we can run our own. Now we are partnering local artisans who will help us train the students on the practical things they are doing.

How has your administration been able to consolidate on past gains?

One of the things that we have that I find very captivating is that, since this is a period of consolidation, we have set up machinery for us to leapfrog into the future. We have trained our teachers on ICT. We have our one teacher, one laptop policy. Two years ago, we trained 10,000 teachers on ICT, and this training has been going on for some time. When the chairman of Zinox Computers came for the opening ceremony, he couldn’t believe that we could achieve those things in three weeks. One of the teachers was speaking the language of the computer. We ended up giving her a laptop which is an incentive. We have a policy that no teacher can become a headteacher if you are not computer literate. This has further made them begin to invest in themselves. That is one of the biggest things that we are consolidating on the gains of the past. It’s giving us the ambience to leapfrog into the future. This September, we will have artificial intelligence and robotics taught in our schools, but we are doing it as a pilot. We have initiated the one student, one palmtop policy, and we are asking individuals to get this palmtop into the hands of the students. Ibeto Group has helped us to appeal to individuals to give students palmtop. Cletus Ibe has donated Android phones. In September, we will be celebrating a lot of our students courtesy of Cletus Ibe, so our private indigenes contribute to what we are doing. One of the things we have also done was to make our teachers and students think beyond the classroom. When the COVID-19 came last year, we started teaching on air, and we made our teachers understand that they are global teachers.

How well incentivised are the teachers?

This is one state that does not owe the teachers a kobo. We pay them as and when due. In the history of Anambra State, there was no time that 503 teachers were promoted to level 16. It is unprecedented. Within this administration, over 1,500 people have gotten to level 16, but within the spate of two years, we had over 800 people on level 16. This is a pure incentive for the teachers because they are doing well. Most subjects teachers have received one form of practical training or another. In 2019, we sent teachers to Dubai for training. How did we do that? Teachers who had won awards for us were sent to Dubai for training. We won the best school administrator and many other awards. We needed to encourage them. Hence, we sent them to Dubai for training. The incentive is there for the teachers. The best team that scored above 80 per cent in Literature is a teacher in their training. A teacher in CKC, Onitsha, asked that she be brought, and we sent her to Dubai. We found out that many of the literature teachers don’t even read the literature textbooks, so we gave them a test, and many didn’t even do well. For those who did well, I took one of the best teachers to Dubai to encourage others also to do well.

What do you want your administration to be remembered for?

One of the greatest things we have achieved in the state is giving our students confidence. In 2014 when we came in, the percentage of students who had five credits, including English and Mathematics, was 60.98 per cent. In 2019, it went to 73.93 per cent. It means that the number of children that entered into the university has moved from 60 per cent to 73 per cent, and that is one of the outstanding things we have recorded in education in the state. In 2016, WAEC wrote to me congratulating me for the credible conduct of the WASSCE in Anambra State. Right now, we use IP cameras to monitor all our exams. I can stay in the comfort of my office and monitor exams going on anywhere. That is a legacy. In terms of infrastructure, technology may not replace teachers, but teachers who use technology will definitely replace those who do not. In Anambra State, we want to say Anambra-certified teachers, just like you have in Ontario.