Gov Masari Laments State Of Education In Katsina
‘Only 58,000 Out Of 250,000 Passed WAEC, NECO In 3 Years’
BY AMOS TAUNA, KADUNA – Governor Aminu Bello Masari has lamented the state of education in Katsina state, warning that a lot needed to be done in order to salvage the deplorable situation. The Governor decried that, out of 250,000 students presented for WAEC and NECO exams between 2011 and 2013, only 58,000 made five credits, including English and Mathematics.
Speaking during a Town Hall meeting with Katsina state indigenes living in Kaduna, the governor lamented that education used to occupy a pride of place amongst Katsina people, but the situation has now changed for the worst.
“There is no position in Nigeria that a Katsina indigene has not occupied. We are the only state that has produced the presidency of Nigeria three times. This is a foundation that was built by our parents but before our own eyes, we have left it to deteriorate,” Masari said.
According to the governor, the situation was not peculiar to Katsina state alone, but the whole of North-west.
“Every survey or study that has been carried out by development partners or Federal Ministry of Education show that the North-west is the most backward in education and that is where poverty is the most severe. The situation didn’t start now, it is as a result of past neglect,” he noted.
Masari said that the highest that Katsina state has recorded in WAEC or NECO exams is 11 per cent, those that have five credits, including English and Mathematics.
Masari clarified that the 11 per cent score was not limited to residents of Katsina state alone, but all Katsina indigenes throughout the country.
“When we removed students in private schools in Katsina state and our indigenes that sat for the external exams in other states, the number of students who got five credits, including English and Mathematics in public schools which government is running, is about 340 to 500 students,” he added.
The governor reiterated that 95 per cent of Katsina indigenes live in the state, adding that if that percentage could only produce less than 5000 students who are eligible go to tertiary institutions, then, there is a big problem.
The Katsina governor said that his administration had set up a committee that visited all the primary and secondary schools in the state and the committee did a head count, stressing that there was a great disparity between what was on ground and the figures in the register.
“What the committee found in the register is that there are 1.2 million pupils in primary schools, but when it conducted a head count, the committee counted only 728,000. In secondary schools, it saw that 378, 000 students were on the register but only 328, 000 were actually on ground,’’ he explained.