‘Yobe requires special fund to rebuild schools destroyed by insurgents’

What would you say is the major achievement of this administration in the education sector since it came to power?At the basic education level, we have built so many classrooms, provided so much furniture, trained and retrained teachers and provided teaching materials. We are cognizant of the fact that primary education is the foundation of […]

What would you say is the major achievement of this administration in the education sector since it came to power?
At the basic education level, we have built so many classrooms, provided so much furniture, trained and retrained teachers and provided teaching materials. We are cognizant of the fact that primary education is the foundation of all educational pursuit, so concerted effort was made by this administration to lay solid foundation right from the beginning. Apart from training of existing personnel, we have also recruited qualified teachers to beef up teaching and learning at that tier of education. Just recently government approved the recruitment of over 2,000 National Certificate of Education (NCE) teachers across the state. It is a continuous process and this is being done in phases.
Teachers were also enrolled in a Special Teacher Upgrading Programme (STUP) to hone their skills. STUP will also enable teachers who did not have the minimum teaching qualification to acquire one under the tutoring of the National Teachers’ Institute (NTI). Over 5, 000 teachers have so far benefitted from the scheme, while several mathematics and science teachers have also been trained at the National Mathematical Center Abuja.
You are aware that Governor Ibrahim Gaidam approved scholarships for 12 Yobe students – eight males and four females – to study medicine in Russian, Egyptian and Sudanese universities. They have since joined at least 200 others that the administration had sponsored earlier to acquire engineering and medical degrees in Turkey, UK, U.S and Malaysia. Along with thousands of others enrolled in various Nigerian universities and institutions of higher learning and funded by the government, these students are the future that Yobe will need to remain productive and competitive.

The primary level of education was mostly affected by the activities of the insurgents…
It was terrible; not only at the basic education level but even at the secondary level, the insurgents have really caused a lot of havoc. They burnt down some of our classes, dormitories, laboratories and so on. We have started rebuilding and reconstructing some of the structures affected. Some schools were totally destroyed. As we speak the renovation of the Government Secondary School Damaturu which was burnt down by the insurgents is about to commence.  The same goes to Government Secondary School Mamudo, which was also torched. The governor has approved their renovations and work is about to commence. Our budget cannot accommodate all the schools affected across the state at once, so we are taking them based on the available funds and by the grace of the Almighty Allah we would complete them with time.
 
How many schools were affected by the activities of the insurgents?
Five schools were seriously affected. In these schools, virtually all the facilities were affected, including hostels where the school is a boarding one and even staff quarters. They would require total reconstruction; we also would expand them more in the process of reconstruction and renovation.
There is also plan to separate co-educational schools. Once we separate them, there will be more room for more intake of students in all the schools.

Are you expecting any intervention from the federal government in the course of rebuilding of these schools?
There were promises from the federal government of the possibility of intervention in our rebuilding process, but so far, we have not seen anything yet. We keep praying that the federal government would step in through special fund because the destruction that took place is monumental. In some places an entire school would be razed down-structures, infrastructure and equipment. In such places we have to build from the scratch; even where renovation is required because of the level of destruction a lot is required in terms of finance to embark on such. The state government alone cannot do this, which is why we keep praying for intervention from the federal government. We are also expecting the local government areas where the schools are sited to assist.

You recently announced the resumption of schools earlier closed down because of the activities of the insurgents. Do you think the atmosphere is conducive for such reopening?
Yes. Peace has returned to the state and by the grace of the Almighty Allah, it has come to stay. Meanwhile we are not leaving any stone unturned in ensuring the protection of lives and property in our schools. We have discussed with heads of various security agencies in the state on the need to provide adequate security in the schools, even in the private schools across the state because the children are ours and they need to be protected at all costs.

The crisis may also have affected school syllabus in the state because of the closure. What measure is being put in place to ensure that students and pupils in the state meet up with their colleagues elsewhere?
It has affected it for only two weeks. We closed down schools because of the insurgents just two weeks to the end of the term and once we open, we would make provision for extra lessons to enable us cover the syllabus before we move into a new one. The JSS3 class when they resume will revise and sit for their basic certificate examination that will qualify them for entry into SS1 and before they do that they have to revise the syllabus to cover areas supposedly missed. As for the SS3 students, they have completed their WAEC and NECO even before the schools were shut and as we speak, the results have even been released. The SS2 students would now sit for their promotion examination into SS3 and we will use the result of that examination to register them for WAEC and NECO against May/June 2014 insha Allah.

What is the situation at the tertiary level in the state?
Tremendous achievement has been made in that tier of education also. Through prompt release of funds, courses in our tertiary institutions have been accredited by the various supervisory bodies. Most courses at the state owned-university have been accredited by the National Universities Commission (NUC). And even recently, we have gotten approval from the Nigeria Legal Council for the state-owned university to commence courses having satisfied all the criteria required. At inception it can only boast of facilities which it inherited from the ministry of agriculture which serves as its admin block and the tree classroom blocks constructed by Bukar Abba Ibrahim administration. In fact the university had its degree programmes suspended in early 2007 by the late Governor Mamman Ali because it lacked the basic infrastructure – classrooms, lecture halls, faculty buildings, laboratories equipped with the basic tools of scientific research, etc that even the lowest ranked universities elsewhere have.
Today the university has several new classroom blocks, lecture theatres, 12 new academic department buildings, student hostels, a state-of-the-art library complex with capacity for 5, 000 students at a time courtesy of this administration. Governor Gaidam also equipped two science laboratories built by the Education Trust Fund, and approved the construction of several new housing units to provide comfortable accommodation for members of the university’s teaching staff. The institution also boasts of good network of roads construction built by the Gaidam-led administration among other achievements, even as new contracts for more road network have been approved. To also boost the academic staff strength of the university, the state government recently approved employment of 35 professors from India and Philippines. The decision to employ the Asian professors is to further improve the standards of teaching and learning in the various fields of academic endeavour in the institution.