Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State has said that free and compulsory education is affordable at all levels in the country.
The governor said high School fees has done a lot of damage to the nation especially on the part of children, whose parents could not afford such fees.
Governor Okorocha spoke when army officers from the Armed Forces Command and Staff College (AFCSC) Jaji, paid a courtesy call on him at the Government House Owerri, said that education should be made free at all levels in the country so that children of the poor can have education.
He said “Most of you seated here are not children of rich people, some of you still have fairly poor parentage like some of us. But if God in his infinite mercy had not helped you through somebody to have education, you won’t be sitting here in Government House today. So, there is nothing on earth that can be compared to education”.
“As we are here, the pivot upon which every of our activities rotate is education and we made it free both for Primary, Secondary, University, Polytechnic, Colleges of Education, Nursing Schools etc, in Imo State to give every poor Child an opportunity to go to School”.
“Our School population now in Imo State is growing in a geometrical progression. It used to be about 281,000 students in Primary and Secondary Schools but today, we have more than one million and still counting because of this free education”.