Governor Abubakar of BauchiBy Abubakar al-Sadique, Press Secretary to Bauchi state Governor
The ugly pictures of school pupils sitting on the floor while receiving lessons in a public primary school in Bauchi metropolis published today in the major Nigerian newspapers have only further confirmed the sorry state of schools, and generally education the administration of Governor Mohammed Abubakar Bauchi state revealed it inherited on assumption of office in May last year.
These pictures, ugly as they are, have only brought to the fore the fallacies in the claims of the past administration that the sector under its watch had received serious government attention and the need for something concrete to be done to rescue the sector from total collapse. It is unfortunate that this is even found in the State Capital, just a case study; the condition of public schools in other rural communities away from the preying eyes of the press is therefore better imagined.
It was because of the state of decay in most public schools in Bauchi state that the Governor, at the inception of his administration laments that, “the sector was characterized by decayed condition of schools, while in some schools the structures were in serious state of disrepair, lack of learning materials and demoralized teachers. Consequently, the present administration doubled its budgetary provision for the education sub-sector where education will take the lion share of 20% of the State 2016 Budgetary allocation”.
It will be recalled that Governor Mohammed. A. Abubakar had in addition to making budgetary allocation of 20 % of the 2016 appropriation above the 15 percent recommended by the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO, appointed his Deputy, Engineer Nuhu Gidado to oversee the affairs of the Ministry of Education as Commissioner.
Although the present administration of Governor Mohammed Abubakar has not yet commenced its planned massive renovation of public schools, in an effort to increase school enrolment at the basic education level, return school dropouts, especially the girl-child to the classroom, make education mandatory, affordable and accessible to indigent children and increase its cost effectiveness, Governor Mohammed Abubakar had also constituted a task force under the chairmanship of the Deputy Governor, Engineer Nuhu Gidado to reposition and overhaul education.
The Governor, had during the launch of Northern Education Initiative Plus early this year, lamented the poor handling of education by past administrations, especially in northern Nigeria, saying “more than 30% of school-aged children in Northern Nigeria do not have access to basic education. This project is therefore absolutely necessary if we are to make any headway in our quest to bequeath a worthy educational legacy for the up-coming generations of our dear State”.
The Governor stressed that the education sector must be carefully planned through effective policies and programmes for efficient service delivery where all children would have access to and complete good quality basic education.
This is the reason that necessitated the Government’s decision to embarked on teachers assessment and verification exercise in order to fish out ghost and fake teachers, ensure prompt payment of teachers’ salaries, improving school structures, providing teachers’ welfare packages and settlement of external examinations registration fees for students, increased enrolment in adult and non-formal education, putting up additional learning centers and improved capacity building training for facilitators and managers.
Governor Abubakar wants governments, particularly in northern Nigeria to take proactive measure to improve the well being of the people, most especially those in the rural areas, and pointed that his administration has embarked on enrolment drive campaign to enroll more children into schools in order to reduce the level of out-of-school children which stood at 10.5 Million from the core Northern States, including Bauchi State.
“We are also going to embark on massive renovation of the existing structures and building of new schools, provisions of learning materials, motivation of teachers, high enrolment rate, reduction of the level of dropouts and ensure better performance in external examination results. All these are aimed at achieving remarkable improvement in the standard of education across the 20 Local Government Areas in the State”, the Governor said.
At the tertiary education level, the administration had also facilitated the accreditation of 23 programmes at the Abubakar Tatari Ali Polytechnic, Bauchi, while working on a Memorandum of Understanding with a Czech Republic University of Science on the establishment of faculty of Tropical agriculture at the Jama’are campus of Bauchi State University, Gadau.
All these are being done within the limited resources available to the administration. It is not in doubt that government alone cannot bring back the lost glory of education. This is the reason why corporate social responsibility is being advocated by the M. A. Abubakar administration as the state is blessed with many wealthy individuals that need to contribute to the restoration of the glory of not only education the state, but in providing all the critical infrastructures in the state. After all they all benefited from free education and free health, all provided by the government.