Peace Education and Rehabilitation Services or PEARS on Friday discussed better ways of strengthening and improving education accessibility in Lopa/Lafon County.
According to Radio Emmanuel, the discussion has been prompted by the closure of some school in Imehejek area of Lopa/Lafon County.
PEARS Executive director Stephen Lokol Salvatore said his organization is now seeking for amicable ways of resolving the issue to enable learners in Lopa/Lafon access education.
‘As we identified an issue in Imehejek secondary school because this school was opened and it has taken some years that school is not operational so it is a bit challenging to us as an organization of civil society and also as the intellectuals of the community what do we do we are here to identify issues related to education in Lopa/Lafon focusing on Imehejek secondary school and we are going to find ways or workable solutions and recommendations minimize education issues in the county and activate the only Imehejek secondary school’, he said.
Ohide John Gabriel who facilitated the discussion said the closure of schools in Imehejek was due to lack of teachers that resulted to poor attendance of learners in.
‘One of the issues is that teachers who were deployed by the ministry of education to this school do not report to their places of work to teach. Another issue is lack of accommodation to teachers and after the dead of three teachers who were deployed in this school contributed to the closure of this school and due to absent of teacher’s students were unwilling to move to school’, he elaborated.
According to County Education Director of the former Lopa/Lafon Ambrose Oyet Albino, Imehijek Secondary School was opened on the third of April 2009.
‘Imehejek Secondary School was opened on the third of April 2009 when Aribok was a commissioner and Paul Erick Gulo was the Executive director and I was education director in Lopa/Lafon that was the year we opened. The school went well until the first batch sat in 2012 but very unfortunate after that the school deteriorate instead of going ahead that was the last batch who sat in 2012 there are altogether 42 schools which are not operational”, he explained.
The speakers made their remarks during a round table discussion on Friday.