Isa Chamo, the commissioner, ministry of higher education, science and technology in Jigawa, says Gov. Umar Namadi of Jigawa invested more than N20 billion in education in less than two years of his administration.

Mr Chamo spoke with journalists on Friday night on the sideline of the 14th anniversary and award xeremonies of the Nigerian NewsDirect in Lagos.

The commissioner was part of the top government functionaries sent  to receive the newspaper’s Governor of the Year Award in Agro-Investments and Security for Namadi.

“Governor Namadi spent over N20,000,000,000 in education in Jigawa state under the present administration, ” the commissioner said.

According to him, the governor has recorded giant push for higher education in the state by employing no fewer than  3,000 teachers and building school infrastructure to provide a quality learning environment.

He said that the number of teachers in the state was raised from 2, 566 in May 2023, to 5,986.

Mr Chamo said that the administration had procured and distributed over 10,000 3-seater desks for students while 5,000 staff furniture were provided at various schools.

The commissioner added that 3,500 double beds were procured and distributed to boarding schools, with 3,840 mattresses to go with them.

He said that 564 tabs were distributed to senior secondary school principals to enhance digital learning skills amongst teachers while 300 routers were procured and distributed.

Mr Chamo said the Namadi’s administration had ensured the provision of internet connectivity across the 293 senior secondary schools in the state to ensure access to wide range of educational and information resources.

He said that over N200 million has been used to develop a digital teaching and learning platform tagged J-Compete programme, which he said, had helped both teachers and students with numerous resources in the learning environment.

The commissioner said that Mr Namadi’s administration had improved school feeding by 200 per cent from N180 per student to N450 per student.

He said that this had made expenditure for the school feeding programme to rise from N1.1 billion to N3.4 billion annually.

According to him, the government has carried out various capacity training programmes for teachers, school principals and directors to enhance their capacity.

He said that the administration had carried out several interventions including Female Teacher Development Scheme, Girls for Health Programme, free schools uniforms for girls, registration fees for law students among others

He said that Namadi administration constructed new classrooms, laboratories, administrative blocks, hostels, library, kitchen, laundry, sport field and toilet in all senior secondary schools including science and technical schools.

“School structures were renovated at the cost of N2,268,211,583 with the procurement of teaching, learning, instructional materials and sports material amounting to N5,791,510,414.

“Payment of internal and external Examination at the sum N1,001,614,221 while schools feeding consumed the sum of N2,127,060,850.

“The administration spent the sum of N4,776,688,726 on foreign scholarship while internal scholarship consumed N1,904,592,925, with the total amount standing at N6,681,281,651,” he said.

Similarly, Dr Hauwa Alhassan, technical adviser to Mr Namadi on basic education, said that the administration had taken basic education to top of the charts.

Ms Alhassan said that with implementation and success of the J-Teach Programme, the governor had addressed shortage of teachers in rural and underserved areas, “with notable improvements in teaching quality and student engagement”.

She said that the state had improved collaboration with NGOs and strong partnerships with organisations like PLAN and PLANE for educational development and empowerment of educators.

“The administration has enhanced inclusion of children with disabilities,  introduced specialised programmes and infrastructure, to ensure access to quality education for children with disabilities,” she said.

Ms Alhassan said that the governor also invested in Nomadic Schools, “which expanded educational opportunities for nomadic communities, ensuring access to education irrespective of their mobility”.

The adviser said that under Mr Namadi’s administration, strategic interventions were made to revert the schools used as IDP camps back into functional educational institutions.

She said that the governor also put special focus on early childhood education, foundational literacy and numeracy programmes.

 (NAN)