Students congestion: FCTA moves to establish more schools

By Stanley Onyekwere

In order to address the problem of congestion in government-owned schools, the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) has disclosed advanced plans to establish more secondary schools in the Territory.
Making this disclosure, the Acting Secretary for FCT Education Secretariat, Umar Marafa, said the administration has already given an approval for establishment of the schools.
Marafa made this point yesterday, during an inspection tour to some schools in parts of Abuja, the nation’s capital city.
He explained that the purpose of the inspection tour was to ensure
that facilities in the schools are working optimally before the full resumption of students for the session.
Also speaking, the chairman of FCT Secondary Education Board, Alhaji Yahaya Musa Muhammad, revealed that the board has received about 150 requests, from communities in FCT, for the establishment of more secondary schools.
Muhammad added that apart from tackling the problem of congestion facing secondary schools in the FCT, the board would equally address the problem of poor staffing, especially lack of teachers in critical subjects in the schools.
He revealed that currently the FCT Secondary Education Board has 62senior secondary schools under its supervision, with 18 of the schools in boarding category, while 44 are day schools.
On his part, the executive chairman, FCT Universal Basic Education Board (FCT-UBEB), Kabiru Matazu, who was part of the tour, disclosed that the board is already making arrangement to ensure that all public schools in the FCT are fenced, while the head teachers are up and doing to ensure peace and security in their schools.
Matazu stressed that public schools in the FCT do not have the challenge of insecurity, just as he advised parents in the territory to always register their children in FCT public schools.