By Yarima Haruna, Birnin Kebbi
Kebbi State Governor, Dr Nasir Idris has made significant strides in revamping the state’s education sector, fulfilling people’s expectations, as a professionally trained teacher and former National President of the Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT).
According to Abdulllahi Idris Zuru Special Adviser on Communication and Strategy, the Governor on assumption of office, undertook a holistic analysis of the education sector with a view to have a comprehensive situation of the various sub-sectors of the system.
He added that the Governor discovered an alarming situation anchored on inadequate structures and facilities as well as the dilapidated existing infrastructure.
Determined to salvage the situation and improve without compromising the competing demands of other critical sectors of development, Governor Nasir Idris designed a comprehensive programme of reconstruction, rehabilitation, construction of additional structures and provision of required teaching and learning materials to be implemented in phases.
The implementation started with the rehabilitation of the most affected schools in terms of infrastructure and construction of additional primary and secondary schools at different parts of the state in the early days of the administration.
In addition, over 300 new primary and secondary schools were equipped with furniture while about 1,500 dilapidated primary and secondary schools across the state were rehabilitated.
Late last year,Kebbi state government procured over 200,000 different categories of textbooks of different subjects worth N3 billion and handed over to the State Universal Basic Education Board under the Chairmanship of Professor Khalid Jega for distribution to public primary schools in the state.
To ensure effective utilisation of the items, local governments education management committees under the Chairmanship of Professors of Kebbi State extraction from different universities were constituted for each of the 21 local governments and directed to work with the Education Secretaries.
He noted that it is on record that four mega boarding secondary schools for the teaching of sciences and skills acquisition have been established in Birnin Kebbi, Argungu, Yauri and Zuru each with the capacity of accomodating 2000 students and will soon be commissioned.
Early this week, Governor Nasir Idris further demonstrated his commitment to improving the education standard in the state when he commissioned and handed over about 13,000 units of school furniture to the state Commissioner of Education Dr. Halima Muhammad Bande with clear directives to share with the State Universal Basic Education Board on fifty-fifty basis.
In furtherance of his administration’s policy of improved welfare of the teachers, he announced the commencement of arrangements for granting soft furniture and motorcycle loans to teachers in the state in order to motivate them for improved productivity.
In the same vein, the Governor had recently approved a reviewed retirement age for teachers from 35 years of service to 40 years and from 60 years of age to 65 years in order to maximally utilised their experiences.
It is equally worthy of note that the various expenditures inquired do not include the inherited backlog of debts that amounted to about N5 billion for the payment of scholarships for the state indigenes studying at different institutions within and around the world.
While all the state government’s educational revitilision programmes are gradually and successfully being implemented, Governor Nasir Idris has remained grateful to the civil servants in the state, particularly the teachers for their support and consistent prayers for the success of his administration
