Effective from March 1, 2025, all children found roaming the streets in Abia State during school hours will be arrested.
Parents of such children will also be punished for not sending them to school.
The State Commissioner for Basic and Secondary Education, Goodluck Ubochi, revealed this on Tuesday.
He said Abia Education Marshals, an education task-force, will hunt and arrest pupils not in school during school hours.
He disclosed that government will henceforth enforce school attendance by pupils because it has invested in giving them better education.
Ubochi said that the planned transformation of Abia schools through innovation would begin with 221 out of 1,600 schools.
“The transformation is real, but the journey of a thousand miles starts with a step.
“We plan to reach out to all the schools that have challenges at the same time but we have to start somewhere.
“We have marked out 221 schools, 10 Primary Schools and five Secondary Schools from each of the 17 local government areas,” he said.
He said that the government, recognising the challenge vandalism posed to public schools, engaged communities to assist in securing their schools.
Ubochi said that schools with minor infrastructure challenges would be fixed before the rains set in fully.
He said that pursuant to Dr Alex Otti’s Free Education policy, the Principals and Head Teachers received imprest funds of N100,000 and N80,000 monthly.
Ubochi said the improved welfare of teachers was part of the holistic project “Fostering Innovation and Reform for School Transformation”.