About 31,000 boarding students in Zamfara State secondary schools sleep on bare floors or mats in their respective dormitories.
This was contained in the preliminary report on secondary schools assessment carried out by a committee led by Professor Tukur Adamu.
The report revealed that most of the boar-ding schools have no beds for students and that even where there are available, the students sleep in “triple decker beds”.
Professor Adamu, while presenting the report to the governor, said most of the facilities such toilets, are over stretched, causing some students to defecate in open places including the kitchen area, where their meals are cooked.
He added that makeshift structures are used as offices and classrooms, especially in schools situated in rural areas.
On the meals served to students in the schools, Adamu said the problem at the state’s feeding agency was affecting the students, adding that on the day they visited one secondary school in Gusau, about 917 students missed their breakfast.
He said there were reports of cases of food diversion with the connivance of principals and that even where meals are served to the students, they were insufficient and under very poor hygienic condition.
Governor AbdulAziz Yari expressed shock at the revelation, saying that it is a collective problem that must be confronted. He promised to implement the recom-mendations of the report, irrespective of what it would cost him politically.
“We will implement the recommendations of the report. We are determined to bring back the lost glory of the education sector because had it been we were treated the way these children are being handled, we would not have been here as governors, permanent secretaries, professors and directors,” he said
