Gov. Mai Mala scratches deeper to reverse poor educational standard in Yobe

 

Yahuza Ali, the orphaned Primary 4 pupil with his truck-load of Kuskus near August 27 Stadium Damaturu, holding crumbs of rice he picked on the ground for his food.

 Just a few days after Gov. Mai Mala Buni had opened the first ever Yobe Education summit in Damaturu to address the failing standard of education in the state, I came across this 13 yr old boy, Yahuza Ali at the front of August 27 Stadium who caught my attention.

As I pulled over closed to him, he tried to move away but a trash of a tantalizing polytane bag attracted him so he abruptly ignored my presence and made two hurried steps to reached his target abandoning his fully trash loaded Kuskus (a locally made truck for conveying luggage, mostly used by water vendor in this part of the country). What was left in that polytane bag turned out to be Yahuza’s meal for the day as I later engaged him and we started talking.

Yahuza is a primary 4 orphaned school pupil at Nayinawa primary school, a low class settlement in Damaturu that is also proned to perennial flooding, who traverse all the trash-heeps in Damaturu after school to fund his education and also support his family. On weekends however, he embarks on a full day’s job of combing all the trash heeps and garbage. At some days, he misses school and hit the streets if the family’s stock wanes off.  In some of the garbage apparently those from rich families, he gets lucky to locate his breakfast, lunch or dinners. Sometimes, he even takes some home for his siblings and his jobless mother who trades in Kayan Miya (soup ingredients) from the proceeds of his sweets.

“I get N600 for every kuskus that is full. I rent the kuskus for N100 from the people that I sale the garbage to. I do this every day after I come back from school. but on weekend, I come out very early in the morning to make sure that I full two Kuskus. Sometimes I have to miss school to do this if there is no food at home for me and my mother and my brothers to eat,” Yahuza narrated.

Yahuza admitted that he was stunted by hard labour and heavy burden at a very tender age when I doubted his age, explaining that, “my father died when I was very small. Since then I have been involved in more adult tasks than my age. I have a younger brother that is 10 yrs but he looks bigger than me. You will think he is my elder brother,” Yahuza disclosed

My brief interaction with little Yahuza shocked my soul with an assuring   determination to pull through school and become a police officer   as he vowed to move on as long  as he is alive.

While Yahuza’s story represents hundreds of thousands of other children in the State passing through the eye of a needle to acquire education, another huge percentage of children are rooming the streets at traffic hold-up and other public places with their disabled and aged parents with their future jettisoned.

A Chinese proverb will  say,  “if you want to walk fast, you walk alone but if you want to walk far, you walk together”. This unambiguously demonstrates the direction and strategy that the fourth Executive Governor of Yobe State Hon.  Mai Mala Buni envisions tackling the educational backwardness that has almost become synonymous to his home state in all ramifications.

Quite frankly, his demonstration of courage to make a defiant statement in his inaugural speech on the hydra-headed monsters that has drag his people below the world  ladder of development indices  clear reveals the pains Gov. Buni was nursing all the years he was not at the helms of affairs as he did not hesitate to fire the first salvo on EDUCATION  immediately been sworn-in as governor on the 29^th May, 2019.

In reference to the deep meaning  of the Chinese proverb to cover more grounds by walking with people, Gov. Buni again came up with clinical diagnosis of the ailment. Rather than treating the signs and symptoms, Gov. Buni feels it’s imperative to deviate from the old attitude of scratching on the surface of the problem but rather saw the need to go deeper to convene a first ever EDUCATION SUMMIT  in the state which will created a market place that will provide a comprehensive hub of ideas that are solution based.

Gov. Mai Mala Buni during his address at the Yobe Education Summit held in Damaturu.

While declaring the summit opened, Gov. Buni having admitted the existence of the problems in the sector nonetheless, he was resolute in his declaration that, “…revitalizing education in our state is a fiercely urgent goal. It is a momentous imperative that can no longer wait. It must begin right now!”

 

Gov. Buni added that, “the familiar perception of the problems that confront us must be creatively challenged. Most importantly, it is a commitment to do all that is necessary to reverse the present order of things, and to suspend the bureaucratic impediments and other bottlenecks that stand in the way of achieving our urgent goal – the goal of providing the best possible education for our children.

“This is why this Summit is very important. I am confident that all the stakeholders gathered here today will help in charting the way forward for us, he believed,” he declared.

To also demonstrate his modest knowledge of the problems and possible solutions, Gov. Buni said: “…as we begin to brainstorm, let me share with you a few ideas that I believe are relevant going forward.

“First, we must avoid the temptation to assume that our education challenges can be addressed simply by throwing money into the problems in the sector. If we do not have good ideas, if we do not identify specific medium-to-long term trends that affect overall outcomes, our schools would remain in the same place even if we budget everything we have in the State into them.

“We also know that education is a human development imperative. It is therefore pertinent that we explore other human development challenges that often impede our capacity to provide a qualitative education for our children. Issues such as good nutrition for children are important, because a malnourished child is simply ill-equipped to internalize learning patterns. As Professor Kole Shettima said, “If children are malnourished, their brains will not develop no matter the number of classrooms we build, teachers we recruit, or stationary we purchase”.

“Second, we must avoid the slander that people go into teaching because they have nothing better to do with their lives. Teaching is important. I dare say that we could not have been here today without the support of good teachers. 

“It is therefore time we recognize the real importance of teachers and give them the respect they deserve.

“But it is also important that teachers themselves recognize their worth in society by taking their jobs more seriously, and by never failing to teach their classes without any valid excuses.

“Teachers who show interest in their job tend to inspire and nudge their students to achieve. And research has shown that when students are happy with a teacher in a particular subject, the students tend to do well in that subject. 

“I want to assure you that my administration is committed to reinventing teaching as a profession in Yobe State. So, in the coming weeks and months, we intend to roll out different incentives to equip our teachers to do better. This will entail, but will not be limited to, providing more opportunities for those who need re-training to re-train, organising workshops and seminars on global best practices in teaching, and making the school environment more conducive for teaching and learning.

“I know that there is a lot of complaints about some teachers who are not qualified to teach, and complaints about some teachers who are not able to speak or write well in English. While we do not plan to retrench any teacher, we will insist that they must get their acts right. We will insist that they must re-train and meet all relevant qualifying criteria for them to stand in front of the classroom as teachers.

“Third, we will partner with our traditional rulers and community leaders to make sure that school enrolment improves. This is because across Yobe today, overall school enrolment for children between the ages of six and 10 is significantly lower than should be when you take population growth and other demographic factors into consideration. This has to change. 

“We therefore urge our traditional rulers and community leaders to play the role they had played effectively in the past. That is, they should become more active by organising community meetings and other outreach services to encourage parents to send and keep their children in school. 

“I also urge a closer collaboration between the traditional councils and local government councils to strengthen primary education. There should be regular contacts between the two sides to assess the progress being made in primary education.

“And, finally, parents must be actively involved in their children’s education as well. They have to show interest and let their children know that they are following their progress in school, Gov. Buni suggested.

Gov. Buni was equally not quite about investments in school infrastructures and partnership with relevant bodies and organizations, just as he unveiled his play to build three model primary schools in the three senatorial zones in the state with a long term plan to cover the entire 17 Local Government Areas in the state all in an effort to re-position Yobe on the  global  educational map. 

His words: “Currently, our school infrastructure is overstretched, especially in the urban areas such as Potiskum, Nguru, Gashu’a, Gaidam and Damaturu.  

“To get our schools fully retooled and redesigned for the success we want them to achieve, we must make huge investments to improve teaching and learning facilities and to renovate classrooms, hostels, libraries and laboratories. 

“We also plan to establish two model primary schools and two model junior secondary schools in each of our three senatorial districts to expand access to education by our children. In the years to come, we will further extend this to cover each of our 17 local government areas.

“We will also seek partnerships with the federal government, the United Nations and other governmental and non-governmental organizations so that together, we can bring all the much-needed investments to turnaround Yobe’s education system.

“In addition, we plan to revive extra-curricular activities in our primary and secondary schools, including academic and sporting competitions, so that our children can compete healthily and learn from each other.

“Above all, we will look forward to all of the resource persons and experts who are here to generate the ideas and best practices that would help us in reaching our goal,” the governor said.

In his paper tittled: Adopting and Implementing best Practices in Routine School Management Activities  for Optimum Performance, Attendance and Learning Outcomes’, Prof James Audu Ngada of the Department of Education, Yobe State University proffered that, “Education should prepare functional people who are fully integrated with their community for earning gainful living and promoting rural transformation through peaceful co-existence. This is what Nigerians need most in this time of democracy. It is also what Nigerians should aspire to have as a product of functional education. It is expected that education should enhance professional competence and good habits which will eventually promote functional self-reliance, mutual trust among individuals in learning and working environments, family cohesion, social justice, alleviation of poverty and stable polity”.

Examining the position of Prof. Audu clearly does not march the reality on ground with such an apparent disconnect of both personale, capacity, infrastructure ete  with the  school systems but he furthered argued that the gap could be bridged through “Leadership and effective school management; Teacher quality and quantity in schools; Infrastructure;  equipment and learning materials; Security; Monitoring and supervision of schools; Community partnership in school management  and student Students feeding”.

The Executive Secretary, Universal Basic Education Commission Dr. Hamid Bobboyi, in his paper tittled; “THE BASIC INFRASTRUCTURE AND FACILITIES ESSENTIAL FOR MEETING THE SET OBJECTIVES OF BASIC EDUCATION IN YOBE STATE”, suggested for; “Community mobilization and Community action among all stakeholders to build a sustainable educational system, broaden access and tackle the phenomena of out-of-school children. UBEC’’s  Self-Help project. Yobe and the Almajiri issue”.

Other thought-provoking papers presented at the summit included; Tsangaya/Qur’anic Education as a Strategy for Revamping Basic Education and Addressing out of School Children Syndrome; Capacity Building and Motivation of Teachers towards Optimum Performance in Attainment of the Objectives of Basic Education among others.

For the likes of Yahuza Ali and other vulnerable children in Yobe  State  to achieve their dreams in life, the narrative has to change and  new tactics  adopted to arrive at a different result from the past. 

The Yobe Education summit  analysts believe is  a veritable panacea  that will proffer solutions that will in the near future create an enabling environment and opportunities to many Yahuzas striving under harsh conditions  and a dysfunctional system to be educated.

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