Ganduje flags-off another phase of schools renovation with N800m

Kano State Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje has flagged off another Phase of renovation of dilapidated schools structures across the 44 local governments in the state with N800 Million.

Solacebase reports that after receiving the report of the first phase of the program, where N880 Million was expended, from the State Chairman of Community Promotion Council, Abdullahi Ya’u ‘Yanshana, Ganduje expressed satisfaction over the exercise and commended the Council’s relentless effort.

A statement issued by Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, Abba Anwar, on Tuesday said the event was held at Coronation Hall, Government House, Kano.

‘’On why the state achieves such a giant stride in the education, as obtained in other sectors, governor Ganduje disclosed that, “Education is our first priority. That is why we are not relenting in our effort in this area,’’ said the statement.

‘’We are up and doing in our observance of Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) policy of counterpart funding UBEC and the State Basic Education Board (SUBEB). We paid 100 percent in 2015 since we came into power, so also in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 up to 2020, we gave out our counterpart funding 100 percent. ‘’

‘’So also in 2021 we paid some part of it. That is why UBEC has been able to pay us their own counterpart funding. That is why we are able to do what we are doing now and what we did before. To show you how serious we are in this respect and all other areas of governance.”

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‘’Kano state being the most populous state in the country, the state has more public schools than any other states in the country. “We have more pupils and more students in our public schools than in any other state of the federation. So also we have the highest number of enrollment,” he disclosed.

Governor Ganduje further reminded that, when the state declared free and compulsory primary and secondary schools education and reforming of Almajiri schools, “…we all assured ourselves that implementation of this policy is a task that must be accomplished.”

He noted that the policy is in place to make sure that education becomes accessible, affordable and sustainable with full community participation, “…hence the establishment of community promotion council (CPC).’’

Being a policy of free and compulsory education, he observed “…you must have one, two or more challenges. But we evolved a strategy to tackle the challenges. Because we need to also consider our budget. For example, instead of United Nations provision of 25 percent budget allocation for the education sector, here in Kano it is 26 percent budgetary allocation for the state.”

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Part of the strategy as he explained, included the establishment of the Education Trust Fund, Education Contribution Fund and Community Promotion Council, among others.

In his remarks the Executive Chairman of SUBEB, Dr Danlami Hayyo reveals some of the feats achieved by the Ganduje administration, which included “Construction of 1,396 classes from 2015 with the sum of over N8.2 Billion, construction of compartment toilets 356, fencing of 25 schools to avoid encroachment for over N200 Million, construction of 116 boreholes, renovation of 589 with over N1 Billion and 90,809 chairs worth over N2.5 Billion.”

Concluded that, “Before our enrollment of school pupils was 1.5 Million and after the declaration and implementation of free and compulsory education we have over 4 Million. We have staff strength of over 70,000 and our salary runs up to over N3 Billion for our teachers monthly.”