(Staircase collapsed. Photo by Instablog)
About 300 senior pupils of Government Girls Secondary School (GGSS), Janbulo, in Gwale Local Government Area of Kano State, narrowly dodged calamity on Thursday after the staircase leading to their upper classrooms fell during lecture hours.
Alfijir news reported that the incident occurred at about 1:00 p.m. as kids were attending courses in two upper classrooms, leaving them trapped until professors planned their evacuation.
The school principal, Hajiya Jamila Mustafa Mai Nasara, said staff members responded immediately after hearing cries for help from the affected building.
She explained that they heard shouting coming from the one-storey building where about 300 students were taking lessons in two upstairs classrooms, and upon rushing to the scene, discovered that the staircase had collapsed.
According to her, teachers quickly sourced a ladder, which was used to safely evacuate all the trapped students, and thankfully, no lives were lost and no student sustained any injury during the incident.
She said the school promptly notified the Kano State Secondary Schools Management Board by telephone before submitting a full report detailing the incident and the state of the affected structure.
Mai Nasara described the development as a major setback for the school, noting that the damaged classrooms serve a significant number of science students, describing it as sad since the school depends heavily on the upstairs classrooms, which accommodate nearly 30 per cent of its science students.
She explained that the school had already been grappling with an acute shortage of classrooms, making it impossible to maintain the recommended class size of 40 students, with more than 120 students currently packed into each classroom, a situation now worsened by the affected block being out of use.
The principal appealed to the Kano State Government to urgently reconstruct the collapsed staircase before schools resume for the new academic session in September, noting that while schools are about to close for the third-term vacation.
She hoped the government would carry out repairs before resumption, warning that otherwise, the school may have no choice but to ask some students to stay home due to insufficient classroom space.
Mai Nasara disclosed that GGSS Janbulo currently has only eight classrooms and one laboratory, and with the affected block unusable, only four classrooms remain available for teaching, some of which now accommodate more than 130 students, resulting in a severely overcrowded learning environment.
She further revealed that the affected building was constructed about 16 years ago and had shown signs of deterioration over time.
Noting that the roof of the two upstairs classrooms had been leaking for the past four years before being recently repaired, though the entire block still requires complete renovation.
The incident has renewed concerns over the state of public school infrastructure in Kano State.
So far, the Kano State Ministry of Education has not issued any statement regarding the incident.