By Balkis Tijani.
The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Education and Human Capital Development in Kwara State, Hajia Maryam Garuba, has reacted to a social media report which claims that about 200 ghost schools, whose teachers are on government payroll, exist in the state.
Hajia Garuba noted that although, the authenticity of the report was yet to be substantiated, an 11-member committee, comprising of staff of the State Universal Board (SUBEB), Teaching Service Commission and the ministry, had been set up to investigate the matter.
Speaking on the mandate of the committee, she said: “We have asked the committee to compile the names of all the schools that we have on our data and match it with names of schools that are being captured for salaries. If the figure is more, we will know something is wrong.”
The Permanent Secretary called on peddlers of the report to assist the ministry by unveiling names and locations of the ghost schools, adding that the ministry had earlier carried out an assessment of schools in the state between 2016/17, but didn’t find any non-existent school.
“We went round the state in 2016 and 2017 and discovered some ‘classes’ that were under trees; we found the staff, students, their chairs and lockers under a tree, but we did not discover schools that never existed.
“We found schools whose structures were appalling, but they were not ghost schools”, she said.