On Sunday night, an Assistant Editor with The Sun Newspapers, Magnus Eze, emerged Education Reporter of the Year 2023, at the prestigious The Nigerian Media Merit Award (NMMA) having won the Ibrahim Shekarau Prize for Best Education Report. The event was held at the prestigious MUSON Centre, Onikan, Lagos.
Eze’s special report titled “Ebonyi: Pupils without teachers,” published in Daily Sun Newspaper of November 24, 2023 beat other numerous entries.
The report captured the parlous state of basic education in the South East State where several pupils were reported to be learning under harsh conditions in dilapidated buildings, some of them on bare floors, while almost all the schools lacked toilet and water for sanitation.
Many of the schools lacked teachers while some others were over-staffed. There were also cases of overcrowding of pupils in classes in some areas.
The special report was triggered by a survey conducted by a non-governmental organisation, Technology for Transformative Development Foundation (TTD).
The study sponsored by USAID was to say the least, heartrending. Executive Director of TTD, Ewah Otu Eleri is passionate about basic education and has worked extensively on the sector. In an interview, he described some schools in the state as a poultry.
It took Daily Sun six months to verify and validate the report released by the NGO.
It was the over six months of hard work, touring villages in parts of Ebonyi State and speaking to stakeholders, that earned this NMMA recognition.
An NGO led by an education enthusiast, Ewa Otu Eleri from Afikpo in Afikpo Local Government Area of the state was able to release findings of its study across the schools within the basic education sector in Ebonyi State and as a journalist, we took time to go back to what they had done, visited these schools. It took us about six months to do our own validation, reassessment of what they put out and what we saw was quite stunning, shocking.
Reacting to his selection, a highly elated Eze said, “I give God the glory while thanking The Sun crew, particularly the Editor, Daily Sun and Associate Editor, Lifeline and Investigation for their painstaking imprint on the report.”
