The overseeing commissioner of Kano State Ministry of Education, Science, Technology and Innovation, Aminu Wudil has said that the state is facing enormous challenges in basic education due to the increasing population in the state.
Mr Wudil, represented by Danlami Garba, the Permanent Secretary, Primary, Secondary schools and Development Partners in the ministry, made the disclosure on Sunday at a press conference to herald the commencement of the 2nd Basic Education Week 2018 as reported by Daily Nigerian.
According to him, over-population in the state is the main challenge that tends to overburden the government’s expenditure in basic education, lamenting that over1.3 million children in the state are out-of-school.
The Permanent Secretary stated that the last annual school census conducted by the state education ministry and that of the National Personnel Audit put the figure of public basic schools at 8,280.
Subsequently, according to Mr Garba , the statistics had shown that enrolment figure among the primary, junior and senior secondary schools in the state stood at 4, 327, 789 pupils.
He further revealed that, the population of teachers in the public basic schools in the state is about 60,000, adding that the state government pays N2.8 billion to teachers under State Universal Basic Education Board, SUBEB, only.
While noting that the challenge is beyond the capacity of the state government alone, Mr Garba called on members of the public to contribute their quota in order to salvage the sector.
“Kano State has the greatest challenge in basic education more than any other state in Nigeria. This is the only state where basic education sub-sector, and even the post basic education sector, that is secondary level ,from our last annual census, and even the national personnel audit gave the figure of our basic schools as 8,280.
“So, it is not surprising to see these kind of inadequacies in our schools due to over population.This is the time when the state government that pays N2.8 billion to the SUBEB teachers, out of its N9.8 billion salary derive.
“So, the responsibility does not lie on the government alone. All hands must be on deck to salvage our basic education sector. Members of the community, philanthropists, NGOs, among others should rise up to assist government in development of education,” he said.
Mr Garba, however, admitted that the state also has the highest number of out-of-school children in the country, noting that the problem is a global phenomenon.
According to him, though there is yet to be exact figure of the out-of-school children in the world, the Kano Education Survey Data, which was conducted in 2015, put the figures at 1.3 million.
