Niger State Govt. Can No Longer Fund Education – Governor Bago Says
…Tasks heads of state tertiary institutions to be pro-active
Niger State Governor, Hon. Muhammad Umar Bago has declared that the State government can no longer take care of funding of education again, stressing that it is going to be private sector driven.
This was as he Governor tasked heads of state-owned tertiary institutions to be proactive in the development of their institutions.
He also said that corporate social responsibility (CSR), has become a state law thus, all banks and other cooperate institutions operating in the state must live up to their responsibilities.
Umar Bago, who stated these at a meeting with heads of the state-owned tertiary institutions in Government House, Minna, said that the institutions needed to be up and doing in getting equivalent funding from donor agencies and organizations.
He said the state government will deploy ICT to make education interesting, adding that COVID-19 has shown that learning can take place from home, saying that there was no reason why the institutions cannot do some of their programmes and tutorials online.
On the issue of strike, the Governor said that the institutions need to appeal to their conscience not to embark on any form of strike as a result of personal interest and therefore appealed to the schools on the need to make sacrifice.
Bago then urged the heads of the tertiary institutions to be financially disciplined and transparent since what the institutions generate is not known to the government, adding that he will rather give scholarship to students of the state than to subsidise tertiary education hence the need to know how much the institutions are generating.
He further said; “I will rather give scholarship to indigenes provided they are in the school. There will be serious reforms in the scholarship scheme in the state”.
He therefore directed the educational institutions to come up with a concept note on the issues raised and urged them to lobby for interventions from the statutory organizations to attract projects to their institutions.
The Governor said that he is planning to build another school of Nursing and Midwifery in Minna, adding that the old secretariat and the Judiciary complex will be converted to the school in the next eighteen months.
On Agriculture, Bago said his administration would work closely with the College of Agriculture, Mokwa, just as he said that every civil servant would have a hectare of land for farming in addition to be given five hundred thousand Naira as loan which would be paid back after the harvest.
In their separate remarks, the Permanent secretary, Ministry of Tertiary Education, Science and Technology, Dr. Musa Abubakar Sadeeq and the Provost of the College of Education, Minna, Prof. Yakubu Auna, said that they have been challenged by the governor, and assured that they would work to close the gap identified by him.
A statement by Ismaila Saba Fuvu of the Information Unit in the office of the Permanent Secretary, stated that the meeting had in attendance the Deputy Governor, Comrade Yakubu Garba, the Head of Service, Mr. Abubakar Y. Salisu, Chief of Staff to the Governor, Special Advisers and Heads of state-owned tertiary institutions.
