Education: Kogi govt assures consolidation on school infrastructures »

…urge Principals to always provide timely, accurate data.

Kogi state government has promised to consolidate on its drive to improve infrastructures in public primary and secondary schools across the state while imploring school principals to always provide the ministry with timely and accurate date.

Speaking during a meeting in Lokoja on Thursday with Principals of Public Secondary Schools, ASSUS, ANCOPS and PTA representatives, the Commissioner for Education, Wemi Jones said supplying accurate data by school administrators would aide the effective planning and allocation of interventions.

He mentioned that several gains were made in the Education sector under the last administration including the enactment of the Kogi state education law 2020, which came into effect in the past government but it’s implementation is currently ongoing under the current administration.

The Commissioner also added that the last administration under the leadership of Alhaji Yahaya Bello moved the budgetary allocation from a paltry 10% to 30%, which made Kogi state to surpass UNESCO standard of 26% budgetary allocation to education.

He hinted that the Yahaya Bello led government desired rapid growth in the education sector hence it’s very intentional and strategic efforts which yielded several gains and the new government of Usman Ahmed Ododo intends to continue in this trajectory

According to the education commissioner, the last administration received the approval to recruit 3,979 teachers which was immediately embarked upon, however the Ministry has only deployed over 1,000 in phases in a bid to manage the wage bill, noting that the new government also planned to deploy the rest of the numbers in phases.

He highlighted that payment of internal and external examination fees for public school students was also passed into law under the previous government while adding that the immediate past administration ensured the fulfilment of this promise.

While he lamented that although some principal and examination officer connived in some despicable act and smuggled some illegal names into the register, the Ministry was coming up with an automated solution that would forestall such occurrences in the nearest future. He said presently the Ministry is carrying out biometric capturing of teachers and students in schools.

He expressed that the legacy which the new administration of Governor Usman Ahmed Ododo aimed at in the sector is to ensure that the condition of schools was redeemed back to the glory years of education while ensuring its adequate compliance with ICT.

The idea of the model school as conceived by the Yahaya Bello led government is to have one in every federal constituency across the state with the intention of promoting science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). He said that coupled with two new higher institutions added to the already existing ones, Kogi government intends to reposition education to its glory days.

The Commissioner disclosed that the present administration is soon to organized a broad based education summit before the end of year towards ensuring that education takes it rightful place in the socio economic sector of the State.