Schools Closure: Academic Activities Will Soon Resume In Southern Kaduna- el-Rufai

BY AMOS TAUNA, KADUNA – After much pressure from stakeholders, SOKAPU, traditional rulers and affected students, the Kaduna State government has finally announced that all tertiary institutions in Southern Kaduna that were shut since December 2016 would soon be re-opened.

The government however put a caveat saying; “when there is improved security situation in the area.”

Addressing newsmen in Kaduna on Wednesday while reacting to reports from a press conference addressed by the National President, Southern Kaduna Youth and Students Forum (SKYFOM), Galadima Jesse, who reiterated their ultimatum to government to re-open the schools in the area, Governor Nasir el-Rufai said his administration was more concerned with re-opening of the schools. 

El-Rufai, who was represented by the Commissioner for Education, Science ‎and Technology, Professor Andrew Jonathan Nok, his counterpart from the Ministry of Health and Human Services, Dr. Paul Manya Dogo and the Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Samuel Aruwan, said; “There is no plan whatsoever to move the schools from Southern Kaduna as it is being speculated.

“There is no agenda‎ whatsoever by government to kill education in Southern Kaduna, but ‎the state government is providing a robust plan to uplift standard of education in all parts of the state.

‎”It is important to state that there has never been any plan or discussion whatsoever to the best of my knowledge that the College of Midwifery in Kafanchan will be moved out of Kafanchan, it is very important to state this.

“Secondly, with respect to academic activities at the school, it is important to also state that there has been some activities going on in the school, there was a social request that was made to the government and this was discussed by the security committee to permit certain students to write their examinations and ‎in the month of March the final year Midwifery students wrote their examinations.

“In the month of May, they conducted what is referred to as Hospital Finals, for the nursing students preparing them for their National final examination in September and just last Friday the preliminary training students just concluded their examination that will allow us to index them, this examination was concluded last Friday.

“All these have to be done with special permission from the security committee and with additional security provided to these students to write their examinations and as soon as the security committee are satisfied with the security situations in the state, the school will be reopened for normal activities. 

“When I was here during our midterm review, I spoke on the Kafanchan campus of KASU and College of Education, Gidan waya that they are still closed strictly because of security concerns. We have not been able to collect security clearance from the security committee that for us to go ahead and reopen these institutions. 

“Just to let you know especially as it relates to the Kafanchan campus of KASU, we thought it wise in order to sustain the admission for the new JAMB students, we ensured that the students were brought to Kaduna to conclude the rest of the semester.

“First and foremost is to ensure that we do not loose any part of the Semester and secondly we would have the opportunity to actually admit new students in this JAMB examination just conducted.

“I must admit that we are making frantic efforts to see that the institutions reopen after all security issues are attended to. I also wish to state that if you take a visit to Kafanchan, you will realize that all other activities are ongoing especially construction works.

“I was in Kafanchan last week when I flagged off the distribution of textbooks in zone three at Government Girls Science College, Kwoi from where we proceeded to Kafanchan to meet the Emir to discuss the security situation of the area and proceeded to Gidan Waya to the primary school attached to the College of Education, this goes to show government seriousness that academic activities resume in these institutions and we are pushing that quite well.

“We want the students to know that we are working hard and hopefully soon the security issues will be resolved so that academic activities in those campuses will resume soon.”