Ganduje Disburses N148m To Keep Almajiri In Public Schools

The Kano State, governor, Dr. Abdullahi Ganduje,in his effort to sustain free education and the Almajiri integration policy of the state government, on Wednesday commenced the disbursement of N148 million grant to 1,400 public Secondary schools in the state.

The governor stressed that the compulsory education policy introduced by the state can only be sustained through consistent funding.

He spoke during flag-off of the disbursement held at the Coronation Hall, Government house, Kano, as part of activities marking the state’s Education Day celebration.

Kano State in 2019 introduced the free and compulsory education from primary to senior secondary school levels as well as integration of the Almajiri system into the modern educational system.

His words, “We are providing cheques to schools for daily maintenance… We are providing tablet computers to Education Officers across the 44 LGAs for data generation, analysis, management, and transfer of data such as enrollment, discipline, among others, to the headquarters without physical appearance. ”

He added that “Outside Koranic recitation and Western education, the Almajiris are being thought various skills so that they can also fend for themselves after graduation. ”

According to him, to sustain funding of the policy and other education programmes, the state has not defaulted in the Universal Basic Education Commission, UBEC, counterpart funding.

He said all teachers in the state have been upgraded to NCE through various trainings.

Ganduje also commended President Muhammadu Buhari for ensuring consistent and prompt payments to the states.

“Kano State is up to date down to 2021 in the payment of counterpart funding.. The excess we paid in 2020 is even being rolled over to 2021 and we thank President Buhari for always ensuring that funds are released to us in time,”

He disclosed that , other sources of funding for the policy are: resources from the Education Trust Fund, 5% of the state’s Internally Generated Revenue, IGR, 1% of LGA funds and Community participation through individuals donations.

Speaking further Ganduje said,” We are happy to have entered into partnership with Media Trust, the publishers of Daily Trust Newspapers for the publication of TEEN TRUST, a publication for the Children…It is an innovation to educate our children especially in the northern part. ”

Speaking on the occasion, the state’s Commissioner for Education, Dr. Sanusi Kiru, said items also distributed include 543,360.000 English, Mathematics and basic textbooks to 840 schools.

Dr Kiru also revealed that 10,000 copies of Teen Trust weekly papers would be distributed to all secondary Schools across the state.

He said the government had secured the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) accreditation for the CBT examination, therefore ready for this year’s examination.

According to him, the state government had also established of 300 capacity Computer Base Test (CBT) centre at Murtala Muhammad Library, among other successes.

The Kano State UBEC Chairman, Dr. Danladi Hayyo, in his contribution, said the free education policy has made it possible for the state to enroll over 3.5 million children into schools, making Kano the state that had returned the highest number of out-of-school children back to school.