Rehabilitation of schools by any government or stakeholder are always targeted at creating conducive and peaceful learning environment for pupils and sustenance of solid structural foundation.

Rehabilitation could be defined as the restoration of good health, ability to work, or the like or the restoration of someone to a useful place in society.

 Whatever definition educationists gave rehabilitation, the fact is that the school, an environment for acquisition of knowledge and learning, has to focus on improvement of pupils performances and standard.

The  Kwara State Government ,in it efforts to justify this trend in education sector, had declared the rehabilitation of about 400 schools in the state.

  Its started with classrooms  at the basic and Senior Secondary School levels in 2012. Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed in an interactive session with Journalists, disclosed that the classrooms were rehabilitated, promising that he would rehabilitate another 200 classrooms soon during the inauguration of a new private sector group of schools, the Adrin Schools.

  However, in Kwara State, rehabilitation of public schools by government are merely seen as  opportunity for contractors to get their own government largesse while pupils derive little teaching.

While rural schools were left alone in the hands of communities and Education Support for School Programme in Nigeria(ESSPIN), teachers posted to such schools report to duty at will since the regulatory body is too far from them.

 Investigation show that majority of schools rehabilitated were done after discovery by ESSPIN, a UK NGO sponsored by British government which had spent over N15 million to rehabilitate selected schools within it shortest time in Kwara State. Few school structures done by SUBEB or State Government did not last long as contractors handling the projects had reduced the working capital in the course of construction.

At Ilorin Government Secondary School, along Sango area, Mount Camel, Comprehensive High School,  building rehabilitation  opened up  with  many classrooms pillars, ceiling, and fence  not too strong to last expected duration. At Government Day Secondary Agbamu,in Irepodun Local Government Area of Kwara State, government has almost completed rehabilitation of the school into full boarding house.

  Though the State government is trying to reintroduce full boarding house and technical education, It has laid foundation for a Vocational Centre at Ajase-Ipo and making efforts to use part of Ajase-Ipo Comprehensive High School as its affiliate.

Governor Ahmed believe that his achievements came from the realisation that a vibrant educational system required appropriate infrastructure for pupils and students. He also said that the state government would step up its Quality Assurance Unit for an improved education standard.

Ahmed said that the state had a virile basic education culture, and warned that his administration would not hesitate to close down any school found to be violating the statutory standards for the education sector in the state.

"A child's basic educational development is directly correlated to the foundation laid at the basic level. We intend to strengthen the capacity of our Quality Assurance Unit to ensure that all public and private schools adhere to the teaching standards and benchmarks in our educational policy, in pursuit of the highest standards of teaching and learning in the state's school system".

 Commenting further on government efforts, Kwara state SUBEB in it official website stated that it had constructed  20 blocks of three (3) classrooms(Annexure II),construction of 32 blocks of two(2) classrooms

(Annexure III),renovation/Rehabilitation of AIS LGEA School, Okekere, Ilorin, Supply and Distribution of 16,722 number of plastic furniture (Annexure V),Completion of 45 classroom of UBE abandon Projects.

Similarly, KWSUBEB with Education Trust Fund intervention fund also constructed a block of three classrooms, a block of two (2) classrooms with office,procurement of 2-seater primary school pupils furniture (320nos) and16 sets of teachers tables and chairs.

Others were the construction of a block of three classrooms (16nos), procurement of 960 JSS students furniture  and 48 sets of teachers tables and chairs, construction of a block of two (2) classrooms (16nos) and procurement of 2-seater primary school pupils furniture .

  Nevertheless, all these according to education analysts, have not yielded good outcome on the performances of pupils both in primary and secondary schools.

For this, a former Chairman of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) in Kwara state, Mr.  Olawepo is challenging the state government to publish lists of the schools where the classrooms were rehabilitated.

  "In this case, we challenge them to publish the names of the schools and the number of classrooms renovated for Kwarans to verify. The easiest and empirical way to assess the government's claim to have improved the standard of education is by looking at the most recent

results of pupils from Kwara in the WAEC/NECO/JAMB examinations. Of course, the results did not show any improvement in the performance of students in Kwara public schools. As it stands today, Kwara is one of Nigeria's most backward states educationally. We challenge the state government to say otherwise with a verifiable claim."

Olawepo further said : "But equally worrisome is the spate of street urchins/gangs across the state capital. This portends a grave danger to public peace, but the truth is that it is a manifestation of the low level of economic activities in the state," he said.

 In his reaction, the state chairman of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), Mr. Suleiman Buhari, said Kwara residents deserve a public apology from Ahmed for allegedly peddling falsehood on a sector as germane as education.

He said  statewide assessment of the Kwara public schools by private assessors commissioned by the CPC came in with damning reports of the sorry state of public schools' infrastructure in the state.

 "Verifiable facts across the state indicated that since the inception of the Ahmed-led government in the state, the few successfully rehabilitated classrooms by his government are those abandoned by his predecessor, Dr. Bukola Saraki.

"And to add salt to injury, even the few ones verified to have been successfully completed were awarded to political jobbers, who did very shoddy rehabilitation works on the classrooms at the expense of  innocent pupils who helplessly bear the brunt of their selfishness and ineptitude."

Observing the nonchalant attitude of teachers in rural areas, the Kwara state Teaching Service Commission has announced that about 25 primary school teachers in the Kwara State Teaching Service are to be variously punished for absenteeism.

The Executive Chairman of the State Universal Basic Education Board (KWSUBEB), Barrister Lanre Daibu who disclosed this in Ilorin discovered the truancy during an unscheduled visit to primary and junior secondary schools in Ifelodun and Ilorin East Local Government Areas and directed the affected teachers to report at the Board headquarters, Ilorin  for interrogation.

    The Chairman who  sighted  pupils of some schools roaming about during lessons period, expressed disappointment with the nonchalant attitude of teachers to work, and warned that the State Government would not condone laziness among teachers .