The Abia State Government says it would set up a committee to examine the constraints of running mission schools and suggest possible ways government would assist them.

Governor Okezie Ikpeazu dropped this hint yesterday in Umuahia when he received in audience, the Interdenominational Committee on the Return of Mission Schools in Abia State.

The committee had requested for a grant to enable churches rehabilitate dilapidated schools that were returned to them.

Ikpeazu emphasised that there was need for the interdenominational committee and the government to jointly look at government’s resources and find a way of aiding the schools already returned to the churches.

He admitted that mission schools have the capacity to impact positively on pupils and students through the inculcation of good morals and sound education and promised that government will assist the churches in their efforts to restore discipline in schools.

The governor assured that government would not lay off teachers in mission schools, but regretted that most teachers were unwilling to remain in mission schools due to close monitoring of such teachers by the missions.

He vowed to accord priority to education and upbringing of children in his administration and expressed strong sentiments about the return of schools since, according to him, he was a beneficiary of mission schools.

Earlier in his address, the leader of the delegation and Methodist Archbishop of Umuahia Archdiocese, Most Rev. Sunday Agwu, assured that churches will continue to work in partnership with the government to make Abia take the lead in education.

Bishop Agwu pleaded with the State Government to provide grant-in-aid to the mission schools to rehabilitate dilapidated infrastructure in the returned schools as well as to return all primary and secondary schools owned by the churches to them.

•Photo shows Gov Okezie Ikpeazu receiving an address from Archbishop Sunday Agwu when the Committee on return of schools visited the governor.