Strengthening Primary & Secondary Education in Yobe State precursor to YOBE Education summit: A civil society perspective - Faruk Abdullahi.Chiromari

A civil Society Advocate, Faruk Abdullahi Chiromari has come up with possible solutions that will address  the basic foundational defects that Yobe State has suffered over time.

His solutions which is contained in a memo titled: "Improving the Standard of Primary and Secondary Education in Yobe State Submitted to the State Response Committee on Emergency in Education" and obtained exclusively by ImpactOnlineMedia said noted that the solutions  came as a result of  an extensive interaction with the local people on how to improve the educational sector in the state.

Some of the solutions range from complete review of  governance in the education sector, quality of teaching, teacher training; welfare; strict monitoring and evaluation; infrastructure and furniture and teaching aid.

Mr. Abdullahi noted that a serious governance review in the educational sector will strengthen the system and build fortresses that will make the system corruption proof thus addressing many other problems.

 Below is the full text of the MEMO:

MEMO ON IMPROVING THE STANDARD OF PRIMARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION IN YOBE, SUBMITTED TO THE STATE RESPONSE COMMITTEE ON EMERGENCY IN EDUCATION. 

The quest for improving the educational sector has been the lifestyle of many well meaning indigenes and non indigenes alike. I don't have to spend time giving the historical antecedents because we don't have the luxury of time. At the moment, we are looking for solution to revive the educational sector in Yobe (particularly at primary and secondary levels).

I am glad the new administration has expressed willingness to make things happen hence the declaration of 'state of emergency on primary and secondary education' by the Governor during his inaugural speech on 29th May, 2019 at the new banquet hall Government House Damaturu.

Riding on this pronouncement, I feel we have got the first part of the work done. The remaining half is now what the technocrats supported by all stakeholders would have to produce. In my submission, I want to suggest the following steps:

1. Review on Governance in education sector: the leadership of State Ministry of Education, Boards and Agencies needs to be reviewed and be steadfast towards achieving excellence such that we'll have improved accountability in the implementations of all activities. Here, let's pause and ask ourselves; what was the problem; was there adequate funding? How about budgetary provisions?  Timely budget release? Overall performance….   

2. Quality of Teaching: How many qualified teachers do we have on the payroll? By qualified here I mean those teachers with minimum requirement to teach at primary and secondary schools! The main subjects like English, Mathematics, Integrated Science (for primary) and Chemistry, Physics, Biology, Economics, Geography, Technical Drawing, IRK/CRK Commerce, History, Nigeria Languages etc...(For secondary) Are they enough? If yes, fine. If no, how do we source/produce more? 

3. Teacher Training: What is the capacity gap of the available teachers? A capacity development plan should be designed/updated and be followed to make sure there's continues teacher training, retraining through seminars, workshops and other courses with cost effectiveness.

4. Welfare: What's the salary of teachers? Do we have incentives for rural posting? What about accommodation? Promotion, Reward for hard work/outstanding performance etc...

5. Monitoring and Evaluation: How effective are we on school supervision and inspection? What is stopping us? Can we revive that culture? We must.

6. Infrastructure/Furniture: How many dilapidated schools do we have? What's our plan for reconstruction, renovations and maintenance? Water facility, toilets and functional school clinic    

7. Teaching aids: What type of teaching aids do we use in our schools (Modern or obsolete)? We need to go the 21^st century way.

Having said all these, let’s now look at the proposed plan we have here:

S/N	ACTIVITY	TIMEFRAME/PRIORITY	RESPONSIBLE PERSON
1	Model: Centre of Excellence Select one school each from 17 LGAs and make them 'centre of excellence' where classes, hostels, Laboratories, Water facility, toilets and functional school clinics exist. Teachers, teaching aids and everything required towards achieving quality education is provided. PRIMARY: Identify one primary each from 17 LGAs then replicate to all political wards overtime SECONDARY: Identify two secondary [one boys’ school and one girls’ school] in each LGA for this intervention.	Short term – urgent	SMoE
2	Activate training and capacity building programs in-house and elsewhere taping from institutions around the state (NUT, colleges of education, universities) etc...	Short-term – urgent	SMoE
3	Institutionalized Integrated supportive supervision whereby, education inspectors would be empowered to be monitoring teachers’ performance schools using checklist continuously	Short-term urgent	SMoE
4	Establish Child protection Mechanism The mechanism would address cases of child abuse of all kind including discrimination. We have experts that would support in this regard.	Urgent	SMoE
5	Discipline Teachers absenteeism and other unethical behaviors must be punishable to sanitized the sector	Urgent	TSB
6	Human Resources Conduct human resource audit to understand exact number and distribution of available teachers in the classroom Ensure proper distribution, deployment and retention of qualified teachers Welfare, promotion, recognition for outstanding performance, loans accommodation and other things	Urgent	TSB/SMoE
7	Train more young people base on the outcome of human resource audit to fill in the gaps. This training would be done in places like FCE Potiskim, COE Gashua, Universities of Maiduguri, Yobe State University and other Higher institutions of learning specialized in training teachers in Nigeria	Mid-term and Long-term	SMoE
8	Establish Complaint, feedback and Response mechanism This would help in providing feedback on happenings within and around the educational sector for quality assurance accountability, transparency and prudence. This CRM should be independent and be reporting to the Governor	Urgent short-term	HE/SSG
9	Buildings Use calendar to determine project implantation [reconstruction, renovation and regular maintenance of public schools] Water facility, toilets and functional school clinics  base on priority; number of students per school, catchment area etc Furniture Provide qualitative students desk, beds, laboratory apparatus and general fittings for staff/students. Learning and teaching aids inclusive       Sports Provide adequate sports and fitness  facilities	Urgent	SMoE
10	Crisis zone Consider converting all schools in crisis prone areas to day schools to avoid the tragedy of abduction and massacre Sustain/Improve security and vigilance around schools. Develop a realistic contingency plan while ensuring proactive measures	Urgent	SMoE
11	Enrolment Task district heads, village heads to ensure all eligible children of school age are enrolled in to formal schools, regular attendance and retention until completion	Urgent	SSG

 

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