The Chairman, Queen’s College Parent Teacher Association, (PTA) Lagos, Mr. Adedamola Adewuyi, has called on the federal government to increase the budgetary allocation to unity schools in the country to enhance a continuation of the tradition of excellence.
Adewuyi, whose three-year tenure comes to an end this month, stated this at the institution’s general meeting of the association, at the weekend.
Part of the agenda of the meeting was the inauguration of a five-member electoral committee, saddled with the responsibility of putting modalities in place for the conduct of an election of new PTA executives.
He stressed that the establishment of a funding agency for unity schools, similar to the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) for the country’s institutions of higher learning could be a way out.
He bemoaned the poor state of facilities, in unity schools across the country, saying that the government needed to do a lot in terms of maintenance of infrastructure, replacement of outdated equipment and building new structures to avoid overstretching existing ones.
Adewuyi pointed out that already, the government had stopped employing non-teaching staff and that the responsibility was now on the PTA of the college, which currently has 113 staff (58 teachings and 55 non-teaching staff) on its payroll.
According to him, the overall PTA staff salaries per month in the college is about N5 million, which makes it about N20 million per term/quarter.
“Before our previous proposition to have an academic and developmental levy, PTA income was about N15 million termly, from our N5,000 levy, with the additional N2,000 academic/development support, our basic inflow became about N21 million termly.
“This means only N1 million will be available for interventions throughout the term, going forward, except the Federal Ministry of Education sends in more teachers or recruits from our PTA teachers or staff, to free up resources,” he said.
According to him, despite the paucity of funds, his administration harnessed CSR and parents’ support to execute several projects and made significant impact on the school environment and students’ performance.
Highlighting some of his achievements, the outgoing chairman said at inception in 2020, the school environment was full of rancour, which impacted negatively on the overall academic performance.
He noted however that his administration came in as progressives, to stabilise the system. He added that the PTA executives had a good working relationship with two principals of the college, which yielded a lot of laudable achievements.
In terms of academics, he said his team helped to improve the standard of internal examinations, eradicated the merging of classes by recruiting teachers, instituted the PTA award for outstanding students in both the junior and senior schools, as well as the JAMB organised Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
He further noted that the outgoing PTA executives had introduced complaint forms, and improved PTA teachers’ welfare with salaries ranging from N40,000 to N80,000.
“Increasing staff salaries was very necessary to stop the increasing wave of resignation and loss of good hands we have developed, to private schools.
“We beseech the FME to expedite action on the conversion of old PTA teachers to FME status and also recruiting non-teaching staff,” the chairman said.
He added that the PTA provided teaching aids for some departments, provided e-learning facilities in collaboration with management, teachers and parents, and organised a series of staff and students workshops on different topics.
According to him, his administration facilitated the ‘Adopt a Chair drive’ among parents and vendors, which birthed 250 chairs that were used during external examinations.
Through competition support, he said the PTA had supported the students in many academic competitions, where they won several medals and laurels.
On infrastructure renewal and optimization, Adewuyi said some of his administration’s projects were: water storage and reticulation, water treatment support, stand-alone water system, toilet revamp, netting of hostels, equipping of guidance and the counselling unit, procurement of lawnmowers and professional expertise of external gardener, and the procurement of petrol generators for dining and prep.
He listed other achievements including; the procurement of an 18-seater Hummer 3 bus; termly fumigation of hostels and environment; procurement, installation and repair of fans; mobilisation of four interactive boards during the COVID-19 era to aid e-learning.
He added that the association also improved the PTA portal; carried out the maintenance of the PTA procured 200KVA diesel generator and revamped the PTA office and board room, among other interventions.
He advised the incoming chairman to be peaceful, dynamic and patient.
The Principal of the college, Mrs. Oyindamola Obabori Fosha who commended the outgoing PTA executives for their support, enjoined parents to cooperate with the electoral committee to ensure a smooth transition, having the wellbeing of the children as the focal point.
She said on her assumption of office, she confronted and solved the perennial water problem in the college and the college now enjoys clean, uninterrupted and uncontaminated water, free from iron content that gives water a brownish dirty colour.
In spite of her administration’s achievements, she said some of its challenges include inadequate staff, inadequate accommodation for staff and students, overstretched classrooms, inadequate power supply, paucity of funds, decaying facilities, and challenging inflation and exchange rates, among others.
In her remarks, the Chairman of the School-Based Management Committee (SBMC), Mrs. Modupe Okebukola, stated that parents’ contribution is essential to move the school forward and ensure the success of their children because the government cannot do it alone.
Among members of the outgoing executives are: Mrs. Chiedu Nwokolo, Vice-Chairperson QCPTA, Mrs. Abiodun Amodu, Public Relations Officer (PRO),
Mrs. Meroyi General Secretary, Mr. Abiodun Oladejo, Assistant General Secretary and Mrs. Maimuna Usman, Treasurer Mrs. Chinye Okolie who is the Financial Secretary, complete the number.
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