Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State

The Kaduna State Commissioner for Education Science and Technology, Ja’afaru Sani, said on Monday that the state has recorded unprecedented development in the education sector in the last three years.

The commissioner told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Kaduna that government intervention in the sector has resulted in massive transformation towards delivery of qualitative education.

“What we met in the education sector when we took over the governance of the state from the PDP three years ago was disturbing with about 80 per cent of the 4,200 public primary schools in the state dilapidated.

“Also, more than half of 1.5 million pupils in these schools sit on bare floor, while about 543 junior and senior secondary schools in the state are not in good condition.

“In addition to being understaffed, 40 per cent of the staffs were unqualified.”

Sani said that the government had to declare a state of emergency in the sector in October 2015, after which it embarked on massive infrastructure rehabilitation in the schools.

“So far, the government had gave out massive contracts for the renovation and rehabilitation of over 700 public primary and secondary schools and the supply of 770,000 units of furniture.

“We also procured and distributed 455, 928 pairs of school uniforms to students and installed 5,380 white board, 15 smart board, and other modern equipment and teaching materials for quality teaching.

“Similarly, with support from Islamic Development Bank, we are currently constructing six science schools that will be equipped with modern facilities to encourage science education.”

On teachers, the commissioner said the government had given due attention to the welfare of teachers and had to sack about 22, 000 of them that were unqualified to teach in primary schools.

“We are concluding the process of recruiting 25,000 qualified teachers to replace the sacked ones and so far, 11, 335 have been employed and deployed to various schools.”

Sani said that the government would also conduct similar exercise to flush out all the “misfits” teaching in secondary schools.

He said that over 2,000 teachers in English and Science subjects have been recruited, while over 20, 000 tablet computers have been distributed to 15, 000 secondary school students to expose them to Information Technology.

The commissioner explained that the free school feeding programme initiated in 2016 had raised primary school enrolment from 1.5 million in 2015 to 2.1 million as at December 2017.