The Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Muttaqa Rabe-Darma, has recruited 200 volunteer teachers to provide extra lessons for senior secondary school students in Katsina State.

The state coordinator of the programme, Abdulsalam Abubakar, disclosed this during the training of the selected volunteers in Katsina on Friday.

Mr Abubakar said the programme was designed to support students preparing for terminal examinations, including the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) conducted by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB).

He said the initiative would initially cover Malumfashi, Funtua, Dutsinma, Kankia, Katsina, Mani, and Daura local government areas, with plans to expand it to all 34 LGAs in the state.

According to him, the 200 volunteers were selected from over 1,050 applicants after a rigorous screening and interview process, including practical tests in their respective subject areas.

He said the selected graduates would teach English language, mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, economics, government, and accounting.

“The programme seeks to enhance educational achievement among senior secondary school students by adequately preparing them for their examinations and equipping them with the foundation needed for higher education,” he said.

Mr Abubakar said the volunteers were undergoing a three-day training on teaching techniques, classroom management, learning strategies, and understanding learners before their deployment to designated centres.

He said the training was being conducted at different centres, including Malumfashi, Dutsinma, Katsina, and Daura, to prepare the volunteers for effective engagement with students.

The coordinator said each of the seven participating LGAs would have two centres where the volunteers would conduct extra lessons, mainly during weekends.

He added that additional days could be introduced during school vacations, depending on students’ schedules and other commitments.

Mr Abubakar said graduates with higher national diploma (HND) and university degrees would receive a monthly allowance of N40,000, while those with national certificate in education (NCE) would receive N30,000.

He explained that the initiative aimed not only to improve students’ academic performance but also to empower unemployed graduates by providing them with income and teaching experience.

“Some of the volunteers are not education graduates, so the training is exposing them to the basic principles and elements of teaching and learning.

“This experience can also strengthen their prospects whenever opportunities for teaching or related engagements arise,” he said.

Mr Abubakar said the programme would also help engage young people productively and contribute to the state’s socio-economic development.

He said they had engaged the State Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education and obtained approval to use public secondary schools as centres for the programme.

According to him, the next stage would be enrolling students through online and printed forms available at the designated centres.

“The students will be assigned to centres where they will receive extra lessons according to the programme’s timetable and curriculum,” he said.

He expressed optimism that the initiative would become a long-term intervention that would continue to benefit successive generations of students in Katsina State.

(NAN)