How One Teacher Managed 400 Pupils

Apart from the head teacher and his deputy who rarely go to classrooms, Auta Ezekiel Piwoyi said he was saddled with the responsibility of teaching over 400 pupils in LEA Nomadic Primary School, Wasa in Abuja for five years.

Forty-year-old Piwoyi from Piwoyi village in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) said he was the only teacher in the school between 2011 and 2016 and that his action was a sacrifice to the nation. 

Investigation revealed that prior to 2011, there were three teachers in the school but two later absconded.

He said he decided to remain in the school due to acute shortage of teachers facing rural schools. 

“I spent five years teaching in this school alone. I was posted to the school in 2008 and by 2011 the two teachers I met in the school stopped coming. I don’t know the reason. I was left alone with the head teacher and his deputy. Since then I was the only one teaching over 400 pupils of the school from classes 1 to 6. It was in December, 2016 that two additional teachers were posted to the school,” Piwoyi said.

Piwoyi said he combined pupils from different classes into a single classroom and taught them separately to ensure that no pupil left the classroom. 

“What I did was to merge classes 1 and 2. I provided two blackboards. One board was for class 1 and the other for class 2. The class 1 pupils faced one direction while class 2 pupils faced another direction. This is the method I applied to classes 3 and 4, then classes 5 and 6. In the morning I started with classes 1 and 2, then classes 3 and 4, then classes 5 and 6. That was how I rotated on a daily basis till the closing time,” he said. 

Piwoyi who spent about eight years in the school said that he was living in Wasa village with his family before armed robbers attacked him.

He said he spent about N1 000 on a daily basis on transportation from his village Piwoyi to the school.

The Chairman of the Parent Teacher Association of the school, Malam Usman Muhammad who spoke on phone described Piwoyi as hard-working, dedicated and long serving staff of the school.

He said shortage of teachers and lack of learning materials were the major challenges facing the school.

When contacted, the Executive Director, Federal Capital Territory Administration Universal Basic Education Board (FCTA-UBEB), Adamu Jatau Noma, said that all plans had been concluded to provide learning materials, and employ more teachers in the school.

According to him, all the challenges facing the school had been identified and would soon be addressed.

He said that N-Power teachers had been deployed to the school and other FCT schools.

The Executive Secretary of the National Commission for Nomadic Education, (NCNE), Prof. Bashir Usman, said the commission would send extension officer in the FCT to verify the problems of the school with a view to addressing them.