We Will Make All Senior Secondary Schools In Kaduna Boarding – el-Rufai

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By; FUNMI OROYE ADERINTO, Kaduna

Governor Nasir Ahmad el-Rufai of Kaduna State at the weekend, said that they  want to make all the Senior Secondary Schools in Kaduna State boarding, starting with the legacy schools.

The Governor, expressed this,  at the Annual General Meeting of Zaria Education Development Association (ZEDA). When they marks the Silver Jubilee Celebration of the Association at ABU hotels in Zaria, Kaduna state.

According to him, this they believe will foster unity. They are also redesigning the tertiary institution system in the state.

He noted that, they  are going to redesign the legislation for Kaduna State University so it becomes a multi campus university.

He disclosed, “the vision is for it to be like the University of California where campuses operate as colleges then over time, operate like stand alone universities. The same will be done for College of Education, School of Nursing and Midwifery, and Nuhu Bamalli Polytechnic.”

He further said, they  are collaborating with banks to create a student loan scheme, so that on gaining admission, you can get a loan from the bank, subsidized by the state government, which you will pay back when you graduate and get a job.

The plan in the long run is to ensure everyone is able to pay for their tertiary education, whether or not they are qualified for scholarships, he said.

He explained that, they have redesigned the scholarship system in Kaduna. What they inherited was a system that paid students from Kaduna in tertiary institutions 10-15K as scholarship. They called it scholarship but we call it 419 as 15K isn’t enough to cover a student’s transportation per annum.

ElRufai said,  investing in education is a long term investment for a politician who is subject to a 4 year cycle of elections. To a core politician, it doesn’t pay to invest in education because the results comes after at least, 30years.

For a politician, it is easier and better to build roads or hand out cash to noisy politicians so they don’t abuse you rather than doing what is more important.

He described, the  United States of America, one of the most capitalist countries in the world, has no private primary schools. This makes them more determined to restore the quality of primary education in Kaduna state, he said.

In Kaduna, they are more determined in executing what is useful in the long run rather than what is expedient. For school renovations, they have about 4,256 primary schools and about 450 secondary schools which they are renovating in phases because they are broke.

It’s saddening that many of these schools have never been renovated since they were built, El-Rufai said.

The education policy in Kaduna state has 10 components. It is absolutely free, compulsory and basic for 9 years. They also want to ensure that all the schools have infrastructure, tools and equipments for the teachers to function.

The Governor said, they did a poll in Kaduna as to what people perceive as most important dividend of democracy, and shockingly, education was 4th. Roads was 1st, water was 2nd, electricity was 3rd, and health was 5th.

The perception of people is the exact opposite of what is more important. Leaders must take action and do what is important in the long run even if ordinary people do not understand that, it is more important for them, he added.

el-Rufai stressed they’ve been told that the reforms they are implementing won’t be sustainable, because when they leave office, things will go back to what they used to be. They hope not! While they are here, they will do what they can, he added.

They are been told that if they go ahead and implement the education reforms, they would lose the forthcoming elections. But to us, securing the future of our children/grandchildren and preventing Boko Haram 2.0 is worth losing the elections for.

He stated that, continuation of their reforms is left for the electorates to decide. They hope that the electorates will never allow that party which allocated teaching jobs to political thugs, come back to power again.

He further explained, “they are going to redistribute teachers in Kaduna state,  for example, there are 168 pupils to one teacher in Igabi Local Government Area while you have one teacher to nine pupils in Kaura Local Government Area. Our  target is to have 40 pupils to one teacher in a classroom,” he said.

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