The Bauchi State Government has organised a 2-day Education Summit to reshape and improve the education sector of the state leading to increasing number of out-of-school children.
The Summit which began on Monday, holding at the Conference Room of the Sultan Sa’ad Abubakar International Hajj Camp, has a theme: “Nurturing a Flourishing Future: Improving Access and Quality Education in Bauchi State,”
It was a collaborative effort by the State Ministries for Education and Higher Education witnessed by the Minister of State, Education, Dr Yusuf Sununu
The event was also designed to serve as an avenue for formulating policies and mobilise the required resources through engagement of all relevant stakeholders towards providing equitable access to education that would guarantee the future of younger generation.
While declaring the Summit opened, Bauchi State Governor, Sen Bala Mohammed said that the Summit’s deliberations would dwell into multi-faceted issues including assessment and analysis of the state of education in Bauchi state.
The governor explained that the summit would aim to convince stakeholders and development partners to collaborate with the government to address the challenges in the education sector of the state with a view to formulating evidence-based policies to address them.
He said the summit would also dwell on resource mobilization, including exploring avenues to generate funding and creation of innovative education infrastructure through devising ways to have conducive learning environment.
The Governor also said that the summit would provide opportunity for excellent community engagement – both local and external by increasing awareness and mobilizing their support for targeted and specific interventions tailored to address Bauchi state’s unique education challenges.
Bala Mohammed highlighted some of the challenges that informed the decision to organize the summit including decay in infrastructure, inadequate training of teachers, and as well as the growing number of out-of-school children in the state.
According to him part of the commitment made by his administration in addressing the ugly trend included construction of over five thousand classrooms, approval for employment of three thousand teachers and increase in budgetary provision to the sector.
Chairman of the Summit and former Executive Secretary of Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND), Professor Suleiman Bogoro, praised the Governor for the Education Summit saying that his reelection was justified considering his high achievements in four and a half years as governor of the state.
According to him, “We are not surprised by the deluge of commendations coming to Bauchi State government for hosting the summit.”
“We have never had education summit before so this is a pacesetter that will define similar summits in future. It is states that take education important that organize education summits”
He said the decision of the governor to appoint two women – Dr Lydia Tsamani (Higher Education) and Dr Jamila Dahiru (Education) is highly commendable and sends a message that the administration was fully in support of education of the girl child.
“The governor has passed a message because the two commissioners in charge of education are women,” he said.
The Chairman also commended the governor for putting emphasis on basic education, which he argued, was the foundation of educational development.
He called on northern governors to emulate Bauchi State’s efforts to revamp the sector as the northern region remains backward when it comes to education.
According to him, “There is a compelling responsibility of the elite in the north, most of whom have had the privilege of leading. We are pushing the blame to others but leadership must accept responsibility for success and failure and we cannot afford to fail in this part of the North.”
He added, “The point is we must not be blaming others but let’s ask ourselves what we as elite have done to improve education. The reality is that we are still lagging behind and we have no excuse.”
Elias Suleiman Bogoro added, “The Northern elite has have been in charge of the education sector in the country more than other regions and yet we still have the highest number of out-of-school children and our female children are still lagging behind.”
The former TETFund ES concluded that “It is on this basis that we must commend the Governor of Bauchi State for the Education Summit”
In her remarks, the Commissioner for Higher Education, Dr Lydia Tsamani, said that education has been the fuel of the Bala Mohammed-led PDP administration and that explained the vast turnout of people to attend the summit.
Lydia Tsamani hoped the summit would bring the state out of its current education inadequacy saying, “The imitative for the Summit was from the governor who is a pillar of education.”
According to her the participants, “Your collective contribution to the issues involved will advance education in the state”
She also said that the Governor has the commitment to ensure that every child has access to quality education in line with goals 4 and 5 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through increase in assessment and quality.
“The important person that can translate these goals are the teachers and the government had provided institutions to facilitate the realization of this. Today teaching is regarded as a stepping stone and beggarly job and we need to find solution to this problem to improve the quality of education,” She said.
The Commissioner added, “As we engage in the discussion let’s focus on strategy and innovations that will take us to a future where our education sector will be a beacon of excellence.”
Lydia Tsamani further said, “I commend stakeholders for their efforts in developing education and I am optimistic in the future of development of education under Governor Bala Mohammed.”
She added, “I look forward to the pool of ideas and collaborative efforts that will match with the Governor’s vision.”
The event featured goodwill messages from representatives of Universal Basic Education Commission UBEC, Tertiary Education Trust Fund TETfund, National Centre for Colleges of Education NCCE and United States Agency for International Development USAID.
It would provide an opportunity for the participants to brainstorm and proper solutions to the challenges identified to enable the state align with locally acceptable ways of building the capacity of teachers, especially at the basic education level.
