The Abia State Government said it has concluded arrangements to return 102 primary schools to their original owners.
The exercise, which will be in phases, was coming barely two years after the state government handed over 30 secondary schools to their original owners.
The state Governor, Theodore Orji, who disclosed this when he met with the Interdenominational Committee on Return of Schools in Abia State at the Government House, Umuahia, said that the action would enhance efficiency in school management.
He also hinted that other schools owned by private individuals but taken over by the state government in 1970 would also be returned to their owners.
A breakdown of the affected schools showed that the Catholic and Anglican churches got the lion’s share, with 24 schools each while the Oua Iboe Church and the Adventist Church got 13 and eight respectively.
The Methodist Church had 16 schools while The Assemblies of God Church and The Presbyterian Church had six schools each. The Apostolic Church will get two of its primary schools back.
Orji, who restated his commitment to improving the quality of education in the state, said that the schools would be returned to their owners as soon as the committee handling the exercise was through with the necessary formalities.
The governor said that the government was however conscious of the likely crisis that might erupt between communities and churches, hence it was exercising caution in handling the matter.
Orji who said that his government was the first to return schools to their owners since the end of the civil war, added that apart from returning the schools, his government also passed a law to back up the policy.
He said his government had done well in terms of building new schools and rehabilitating old ones, in addition to equipping them. He promised to sustain the tempo.
The governor said that discipline was better enforced by the churches and attributed the decay in schools to the forceful takeover of schools by the government after the civil war.
He commended the churches for the positive changes already recorded in the secondary schools returned to them, and promised to continue to replace teachers who withdrew from the schools.
Earlier, the Chairman, Interdenominational Committee on Return of Schools in Abia State, Rev. Fr. Anthony Ogbonna, had expressed gratitude to the governor for the return of schools.
He said that the move had been justified as the state emerged the second best in the country in the West African Senior School Certificate Examination. – Punch.
