By; FUNMI OROYE ADERINTO, Kaduna
Governor Nasir Ahmad el-Rufai of Kaduna State has said that “we strive to improve the human resource quality in education, we shall continue to address the multifaceted nature of the problem”.
“We shall continue to rebuild and expand schools, provide furniture and sanitation and act to improve teacher-pupil ratios.”
The Governor said, “in secondary schools, we are piloting the use of computer tablets for instruction”.
“We have raised the daily feeding allowance in boarding secondary schools, while we pursue a medium-term goal to make all our senior secondary schools boarding schools”.
The government recently announced plans to adopt a multi-campus structure for all its tertiary institutions to expand access to such institutions.
He expressed that they are committed to deliberate action to strengthen public education. Since 2015, we removed the career barrier that prevented teachers from reaching Permanent Secretary grade (Grade Level 17).
According to him, teachers can rise to this level without having to stop being classroom teachers or head teachers.
The government is currently reviewing public service pay in the state, and will take steps to incentivise teachers.
He explained that, government has passed the law establishing School-based Management Committees (SBMCs) to attract community involvement in school governance.
The budgetary allocations for schools will also go directly to the schools.
“We are determined to fix public education and raise their standards so that private education will become only a luxury”.
“As we make progress, we will require our senior officials to enrol their children in public schools. And I will by personal example ensure that my son that will be six years of age in 2019 will be enrolled in a public school in Kaduna State, by God’s grace”, he stated.
“One of our goals is to ultimately have only graduates as primary school teachers”.
The educational attainments of a country like Finland shows that this is the way to go. We do not agree that we should restore Grade 2 teacher training.
He stressed that, “we must try to so improve the intellectual capacity of teachers that the NCE should give way ultimately to first and second degrees as minimum teaching qualifications”.
What we are doing is for the children of the poor, and the future generations of this country.
“We know that as dismal as things look, Kaduna ranks first among the northern states, and 12th in the country overall in WAEC scores”.
We can be the best if we do not relent in reforming our schools. Therefore, under no circumstance would we subjugate the future of the 2m pupils in public primary schools, and those coming after them, to the interests of unqualified teachers, he said.
