Edith CHUKU
Pupils in some Rivers State government-owned public schools are facing serious environmental challenges, as they are forced to learn in unpleasant conditions.
Heaps of waste littering schools entrances have become a daily sight, creating an unhealthy environment for the students, staff business owners, residents and passerbys.
Aside from the eyesore, the refuse always produce offensive odours, attract flies and other disease carrying insects into the school classrooms, especially during this period of heavy rainfall.
At State Primary School, Atali, piles of waste have become a daily sight for pupils and teachers, as residents and business owners have turned the entrance to the state government owned public school, into a refuse dump site.
The situation is no different in State Primary School 1, Eneka, even as the heavy rainfall has made the area irritating.
Concerned stakeholders in both communities, in the Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of the state, have raised the alarm over the health hazards the practice would cause on the pupils of both schools.
Earlier, residents were disposing waste at the entrance of the Eneka Civic Center, at the first market junction, before the immediate past chairman, ordered an immediate end to the practice.
Following his directives, refuse disappeared from the initial location, as people began to dump waste beside the Eneka Health Center and infront of the state primary school.
In an interview with our correspondent, a community leader in Eneka described the learning environment as unhealthy for the children who he said are expected to focus on their studies.
Ahead of the resumption of the next academic session, he called for the immediate relocation of the waste disposal site.
According to Mr Chinagorium Dike, “the increasing waste disposal seen at the community primary school 1, Eneka, is an eyesore, really terrible to know that pupils of a state government owned school can be subjected to such unhealthy learning condition.
“The environmental impact is a negative one as it has the capacity to cause some health hazards to the children who are breathing such polluted air from Mondays to Fridays, which can cause air-borne diseases.
“That environment is not safe for the kids. It’s hazardous that our children who should focus on their studies will be breathing in such contaminated air, falling sick here and there.”
Dike called on the LG chairman, Dr. Gift Worlu, to as a matter of urgency, put an immediate stop by directing the waste management agency to evacuate the refuse heaps, direct sanitation team to arrest defaulters and provide an alternative waste disposal site.
“I want to call on the chairman of Obio/Akpor Local Government Area to immediately, for the sake of these innocent children, he should please order the sanitation team to arrest anyone seen dumping waste there.
“He should instruct the management agency to remove those waste and provide a better waste disposal site for residents. He should swing into action. It is an eyesore. It does not befit an education center. Moreso, a primary education center where it is believed that cleanliness is a necessity.
“I wonder how they manage to teach sanitation, cleanliness and dangers of air-borne diseases in those schools.”
Also speaking, Mrs Monica Ebenezer, a resident lamented that, “sometimes this dirty will cover more than half of the road. It is not good. The smell is terrible, this place they are pouring it is not good at all.
“I used to throw way dustbin here because we don’t have another place but if they ask us to stop and give us where we will pour it, that will be better. I pity this children o, especially when they are burning this dustbin, you can’t stay here but they will be inside the school, breathing the thing, it’s terrible.”
