A decade of
uninterrupted exercise for poor children from working class background
The Education Rights Campaign (ERC)
Ajegunle branch has kick-started this year's annual free holiday coaching for
students of secondary schools in Ajegunle and its environs. This year's free
holiday coaching is the tenth edition so far. The coaching is taking place at
the Anglican Primary School, 1 Ezie Lane off boundary road Ajegunle, Apapa,
Lagos.
This selfless service of ERC and
socialist students/youth members of the Democratic Socialist Movement (DSM) was
initiated in Lagos State in 2004 to support children of the downtrodden working
class in the slum of Ajegunle, Nigeria.
 |
| Students registering for the coaching |
This year free coaching started on the
4th
of August, 2014 with turnout of 79 students on the opening day. This includes 21
students in SS1, 19 in SS2 and 39 in SS3 including some students that will be
taking West Africa Examination (WAEC)-private. 17 volunteer teachers were also
in attendance.
This coaching is part of the campaign
of the ERC to demonstrate to Nigeria's capitalist government that free and
quality education from primary level to tertiary level is possible. If
Nigeria's stupendous natural and human resources are adequately used,
democratically managed and controlled by the working people, free education
will not only be possible at the primary level but up to the tertiary level as
well.
Today, public education in Nigeria is
chronically underfunded and mismanaged - a consequence of the brutal
neo-liberal capitalist policies. This has made the education sector a ground of
incessant industrial action with attendant spiral negative effects.
The ERC campaigns for the provision of
free, functional and democratically-managed public education at all levels. We
support all struggles of students and education workers for improvement in
working conditions, better pay, against fee hike and commercialisation and for
an end to infringement on democratic rights on campuses. In communities such as
Ajegunle, we work actively among school students and teachers to campaign for
the renovation of school buildings, stoppage of illegal charges and improvement
in the teaching and learning facilities. The free holiday coaching while it
provides opportunity for indigent students to attend coaching classes during
the long-term holiday also helps to highlight the abandoning of public
education especially in poor communities like Ajegunle and puts a search light
on the activities of the authorities in charge of the schools.
 |
| A Class Session in Progress |
On the first day of the coaching,
three classes for each of the three senior classes (SS1, SS2 and SS3), was
taken for the day. It commenced exactly 9am to 1:20 pm.
The coaching had been preceded by
intensive mobilization with active involvement of comrades at the branch level
of DSM. Some students that attended the coaching in previous years also took
part in the mobilization exercise which covered both public and private schools
in Ajeromi, Ifelodun, Apapa, Mile 2, Orile, Badia and Wilmer.
Subjects taken for this year are English
Language, Mathematics, Civic Education, Government, Chemistry, Biology,
Commerce, Financial Account, Geography, Further Mathematics, Christian Religion
Study (CRS), Islamic Religion Study (IRS), French Language, Physics, Literature
in English, Agricultural Science, and Yoruba Language.
Each of these subjects has three to
four volunteer teachers. The success story about this year's exercise is that
three of our previous students in the past years that are in the university are
now currently participating as volunteer teachers.
During the break time, all students at
the opening day were addressed on the purpose of organizing the free holiday
coaching while the Education Rights Campaign’s anthem was
sang by all.
No comments:
Post a Comment