Teachers and non-teaching staff in public primary and junior secondary schools in Kogi State on Thursday held an inter-faith prayer session to save the state’s education sector from collapse.
The teachers, who turned out in large numbers for the prayer held at the Holy Trinity Primary School in Lokoja, the state capital, also appealed to God to touch the mind of Governor Idris Wada and others in charge of education, to have a change of attitude to the plight of teachers and pupils.
They specifically prayed to God to give the government the courage to pay all their outstanding entitlements and rehabilitate the infrastructure in primary and junior secondary schools.
Chairman, Basic Education Staff Association of Nigeria, Lokoja Local Government chapter, Mr Mohammed Sule, said teachers embarked on prayers as efforts to make government to revitalize basic education had failed.
“Since government has abandoned us, we have to turn to God for help. We want God to touch our leaders’ heart to have a listening ear, pay us our outstanding salaries, leave allowances and other entitlements.
“There are also infrastructure decay in the basic education sector, the standard of education is at ebb and there is no environment conducive for children to learn”, he said.
Apart from government, Sule explained that the basic education sector was in critical need of assistance from all stakeholders so that the future of the children in public schools would be guaranteed and secured.
The officiating pastors and imams at the session prayed to God to intervene in the education sector so that the future of the children of the poor will not be in jeopardy.
They also pleaded with the state government to save the public primary and junior secondary schools in the state from total collapse, saying that the sorry state of the schools portend a great danger for the future of the state.
