Re: Yobe State’s Education Summit

The long awaited first Education summit has come and gone, a gathering that seek to breathe hope to a system that was wobbling towards desolation and despair. Despite the low abysmal performance of Yobe students at primary and secondary school levels another cankerworm that crippled the basic education system in the state is the high […]

The long awaited first Education summit has come and gone, a gathering that seek to breathe hope to a system that was wobbling towards desolation and despair.

Despite the low abysmal performance of Yobe students at primary and secondary school levels another cankerworm that crippled the basic education system in the state is the high level of decreasing numbers of children to school. This doldrums is due to the fact that in times of conflict and crisis, children are forced out of school, which contributes to higher drop-out rates and lower completion rates.

The insurgency of the past 8 years has caused a devastating social wreckage, despite it drawing the state to an economic instability, it also caused an uncertainty to a state that was previously thought to champion the cause of more prosperous society in attaining the defunct MDG2 (Achieving Universal Primary Education) and now Goal 4 (Quality Education), which obtaining the set goals is the foundation for equitable and better education service delivery for all.

Though the summit emphasizes on the way forward towards making Yobe great again in spite of well scholarly presentation during the summit, the Technical Committee led by Prof Mala Daura has to come forth with a robust master plan to address the root causes of children not going to school and why dropout rate is increasing instead of decreasing.

The Yobe State burgeoning number of children who are outside the school system is alarming. More worrisome is the fact that the figure is rising instead of decreasing and a Demographic Health Survey (DHS) conducted in 2015 by the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) shown that the population of out of school children in Nigeria has raised from10.0 million to 13.2 million. The 13.2 million of Basic Education School aged children i.e. 6-14 years old are out of school children, with North East has the highest number with (3,773,000) and Yobe State carried a whopping number of 658,770 out of school children.

The Technical Committee of revamping Yobe education sector has to note that the only set-ups in retention of children in school are through the concepts and principles of advocacy, sensitization and mobilization. These concepts will raise the consciousness of Yobeans to their responsibilities in promoting the attainment of the set objectives of Goal 4 of the Sustainable Development Agenda. The above solution will also sensitized communities on responsibilities in education-access, retention and completion, by ensuring that every girl and every boy should have the right to a quality education so that they can have more chances in life, including employment opportunities, better health and also to participate in the political process. It will encourage formal and non formal education through public enlightenment activities such as; publications, radio and television jingles etc.

The Technical Committee has to also solely focus on increase school enrolment, attendance, retention and completion, particularly of children in rural communities and poor urban neighborhood.

As the root causes of the problem has been identified, the Yobe State government has to increase budgetary allocation not at the upper level but increased the allocation of the State Universal Basic Education Board as the board serves as a direct link with the basic needs of lower education sector in Yobe. Increment of teacher’s basic salary has to be on the horizon and a massive recruitment of teachers to field the vacuum of mass retiree teachers in the state. So also, the Technical Committee has to come up with a monthly capacity building workshop to teachers, so that teachers in the state has to be keep up to date with the international base practices of teaching.

For now the basic education needs special attention, so also the tertiary institutions but until the basic level is addressed then we need another Education Summit with a new theme of revitalizing the education sector with emphasis to the tertiary institutions though all hands has already been on deck towards having more professionals Yobe with the award of overseas scholarship to indigenous citizens to study in China, Turkey and Tajikistan, it’s a welcomed development but we also needs special consideration in the lower level.

 

Zanna Samaila, Damaturu 07031218350.