By CHIEDU UCHE OKOYE

Mrs. Ebele Onugha, Principal of Union Secondary School (USS), Obosi, Anambra State, has said that the classroom blocks in the school are grossly inadequate to accommodate the burgeoning number of students in the school.

She delineated the school’s problems when she had an interview session with journalists in her office at Obosi, Anambra state on January 30, 2026.

The rapidly increasing number of students in USS Obosi, which caused the school’s facilities to become overstretched, is attributed to the upgrading of the school to a smart school by Gov. Chukwuma Soludu.

Since the school became a smart school, it has been witnessing a steady influx of new students, who desire qualitative education and a salubrious environment, where learning can take place.

However, the school principal, Mrs. Onugha, lamented that the students’ population, which is put at one thousand seven hundred students, has outstripped the school's classrooms and other facilities.

“With about fifty-four teachers for one thousand seven hundred students, USS Obosi is overpopulated.

“Each class ought to have only forty students, but some classes have more than one hundred students.

“Consequently, the school’s classrooms cannot accommodate the students.

“That’s why, nowadays, I do turn away students who seek admissions into USS Obosi,” Onugha said.

The school principal further stated that effective learning cannot take place in a classroom, which is overcrowded with students, with some leaning on walls, and others squatting on their hindquarters on the floor.

To ameliorate the students’ plight, she is begging old students of the school and public-spirited individuals, who are well-heeled, to come to the aid of the school, and build more classroom blocks for students.

She, also, suggested that the tumbledown school dormitory, which has fallen into desuetude, could be renovated and converted to classroom blocks.

“I am begging affluent indigenes of Obosi to come to the aid of USS Obosi and build more classroom blocks for the students in the school.

“There is a dormitory in the school, whose roof is blown off; and its wall falling down.

“I am suggesting that it should be re-roofed and re-built.

“And thereafter, it should be converted to classroom blocks,” she said.

Mrs. Onugha, also, is seeking financial help for the bifurcation/demarcation of the commodious school library so as to convert one half of it to a classroom.

More so, she thanked the Anambra state commissioner for works, Engr. Ifeanyi Okoma, for providing the financial resources for the payment of the security personnel, who watch over the school.

And she expressed her appreciation and thankfulness to the Obosi Development Association, Los Angeles, USA for building toilet facilities in the school.

•Okoye, who is a poet, works for the Anambra State Ministry of Information.