BPE begins intervention project in primary schools

Mathew Dadiya, Abuja

The Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) has commenced an intervention program at the primary level of the education sector in the country.

The bureau said that the intervention became necessary because of its firm belief that the primary school level is the basic foundation for the educational pursuit of the children who are the future leaders.

Director General of BPE, Alex Okoh said this on Friday at the commissioning of projects undertaken by the Bureau in line with its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) at the Local Education Area (LEA) Primary School, Dutse-Alhaji in Bwari Area Council of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja.

Okoh noted that without a solid foundation at the primary school level, the future of the Nigerian child would be bleak.

“We have in this school today, future leaders some of whom would be Directors General, Governors and a President of this country and we need to give them a congenial environment to excel”, he said.

He said that the Bureau’s decision to intervene in some key sectors of the Nigerian economy is a fall out of its 30th anniversary where the management resolved to identify areas of intervention to bring reliefs to the citizenry. These include; Education, Health, Environment and people with disabilities.

According to the Director General, the intervention in the LEA Primary School, Dutse-Alhaji includes: Renovation of the Nursery and Primary Blocks; construction of a new a toilet block (Male and female sections of four toilets each);

provision of desks for renovated Nursery and Primary classes; provision of school bags (Back packs) and excise books; School Uniforms (Male & Female); 20 Executive Chairs for the Teachers; Desktop Computers and Monitors for demonstration classes.

Others included provision of Visitors’ Chairs for the Headmistress Reception Office; and construction of culverts, drainages, walkways as well as the sand filling of water logged areas.

In her remarks, the Headmistress of the school, Mrs.Idowu Ajoke Adebomi thanked the Director General of the BPE, Mr Alex Okoh with his management team for conceiving and implementing the projects within three months.

While nothing that the gesture by the Bureau has greatly enhanced the aesthetics of the school and given the pupils a conducive environment to learn, she said that BPE has undoubtedly provided the template of how government agencies could touch the lives of pupils and the less privileged in the society; and called on other agencies to emulate the Bureau.

Pledging to secure the facilities provided by the Bureau for the school, she appealed to the paramount ruler of the area to provide security to the school to safeguard the facilities.

The Traditional Ruler of the Area, the Hakimi of Dusten, Alhaji Abubakr Bako pledged the commitment of the community to provide security towards the safety of the facilities and appealed to the BPE management to renovate the remaining building in the school which he described as an ‘eye-sore’.