Education
FG inaugurates remodelled Chibok school seven years after B’Haram attack
President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday inaugurated the newly remodelled Government Girls Secondary School in the Chibok Local Government Area of Borno State.
The school was attacked by the Boko Haram terrorisms seven years ago, where they kidnapped 276 schoolgirls.
The new school is now renamed ‘Government Secondary School’ as a mixed school for boys and girls.
The attack which took place on April 14, 2014 had led to the schoolgirls, mostly Christians, being ferried into Sambisa Forest, causing agony for the parents, the state and the country.
Former President Goodluck Jonathan through his Finance Minister, Dr Ngozi Okonjo Iwella, visited Chibok in March 2015, to lay the foundations for new school building.
But not until President Muhammadu Buhari came on board, in which, the Borno State Government under the leadership of Governor Babagana Zulum took over that the project was completed, this year.
While some of the girls escaped, some rescued, about 112 of them were held captive or married off to the terrorists as their whereabouts are still unknown.
Minister of Women Affairs, Mrs Pauline Tallen, who at the Monday’s inauguration represented Buhari, said she was in the state to bring a goodwill message of the President to the people of Borno, especially those in Chibok.
She thanked Borno State Government for singlehandedly renovating the school.
She said the FG was determined to provide quality education, especially to the downtrodden and improve the girl-child education.
She said the present administration was also unwavering to root out insurgency in the North-East region and the country as a whole to enable the displaced people to return to normal life.
The minister said, “We sympathize with the Chibok community. We know what you are going through. But I want to assure you that we are working day and night to make sure that life returns to normal both in your community and all others affected by terrorism.
“I want to appeal to Chibok leaders and the community to continue give their maximum support to the present administration under the leadership of Governor Babagana Umara Zulum who is ever willing to give girl child education the desire it needs.”
The chief host, Governor Zulum, thanked President Buhari for his support and cooperation to the state government to obtain the required funds which led to the completion of all the destroyed structures, and pledged his administration’s commitment to uplifting the education sector in the state.
He prayed God to rescue the remaining schoolgirls and all those still in the captivity of Boko Haram.
Zulum said, “The reconstructed Chibok school have a state of the art classrooms, library and laboratory, computer and ICT centre, a sports arena and a clinic.
“For security, it has a gate house and observation post to be manned by well-equipped security agents.
“This administration promised to rebuild the Government Secondary School in Chibok which was destroyed by terrorists. Today, I am glad that we are all witnessing the official commissioning of the completed befitting projects.
“We want our students to go back to school. We want them to get the education they need to live a decent life. We will support them and we will do everything we can to support their parents and the entire community.
“We will also not forget the Chibok girls. We are working hard to ensure that they return home. As a father, I can feel the pain of the parents. What happened was tragic. But I want you to know that this administration cares. We will not abandon our children. We are with you.”
A number of other projects executed by the state government were also commissioned to mark the governor’s two-year anniversary.
The projects executed by the Zulum administration are the newly constructed Government Lodges in Chibok and Askira Uba LGA, Mbabala Technical College also in Chibok; primary health care centres in Mbalala and Wamdeo in Askira Uba; 200 housing units in Chibok town; 20 double classrooms in Damboa; boreholes in Mboa community as well as distribution of palliatives, among others.
Education
FG threatens to stop funding tertiary institutions with poor performance
FG threatens to stop funding tertiary institutions with poor performance
The federal government has said the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) will defund any non-performing centre of excellence it established eight years ago.
Professor Tahir Mamman, the Minister of Education, said the government will not continue to reward indolence by giving free money to institutions that are not doing what they are supposed to do.
The minister spoke while receiving two reports of TETFund’s ad hoc committees on Assessment/Review of TETFund Centres of Excellence and Operationalisation of Skills Development Special Intervention.
“The government is encouraging our scholars to simply rise to the occasion and deliver on their scholarship, what world class scholars do; and we are not going to reward indolence. We can’t be giving free money to institutions that are not doing what they are supposed to do.
“In terms of the skill, we want to raise the equipment level of those institutions, polytechnic and others so that they can provide all the skill set that we need in Nigeria in the highest quality that can service the country and internationally,” he said.
On his part, the Executive Secretary of TETFund, Arc Sonny Echono, said the fund will not continue to throw money away to centres that are not living up to expectations.
Echono disclosed that some centres have funds with TETFund that they have not accessed since inception.
“The funds are with us because we have not released until you reach a milestone, but while they have delayed in reaching those milestones, are causes of concerns.
The TETFund boss noted that the strategy for establishing centres of excellence was a very good one because TETFund realised that it didn’t have enough resources to improve all the facilities of all public institutions at the same time.
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“The idea was to incubate, to have one centre, the right equipment, the right tools, the right faculty and experts, that would lead our efforts in research, in promoting scholarship at the highest level so that they can also inspire other centres.
“We are going to be pooling from other institutions within the area who want to do further research or who want to carry out any other exploratory study in those particular fields in those areas,” he said.
He said some of the centres have done fantastically well since inception, stating that a lot of them are doing innovations.
“Sokoto just came up with one major solution for us. For example, they were the ones that discovered this vaccine for Covid, in partnership with other institutions. Now we are also in the process of getting vaccines for Lassa fever and so many others.
“So, some are doing very well. And some have come up with prototypes that we now hoping to take to industries so that they begin to produce these goods and services,” he said.
On the non-performing institutions, he said, “If you were established five years ago and you are still at your infancy, you have not been able to provide modern laboratories, facilities for scholars to come and learn, we want to know why. But we don’t want to be arbitrary.
“So, it decided to look at some institutions to find out their relative positions in terms of the quality of their faculty, their reputation in certain courses and in certain areas and designated them as centres of excellence for those particular courses.
Earlier, the Committee on the Assessment/Review of TETFund Centres of Excellence, led by Prof Oyewale Tomori, in its report, decline to recommend any centre for upgrade
The report noted that most centres did not utilise their first seed grant of N150 million for the initial infrastructures required in the centres, and advised TETFund to provide some bail out funds to the centres to enable the proper take off of the centres.
“If the Centres are to achieve set objectives, TETFund in collaboration with institutions hosting the centres should ensure that Centre Directors are on full time assignment at the Centre.
“All Centres that are not performing well should be given six months moratorium as a way to prevail on them to refocus and achieve their true mandate after which a revisit will be conducted to determine their status and continue funding,” the committee recommended.
Also presenting the Report of the Advisory Committee on Operationalisation of TETFund Skills Development Special Intervention, the Chairman of the Committee, Dr. Nuru Yakubu, said the committee recommended polytechnics for TETFund Special Intervention according to zones.
“South-West: The five schools visited have shown preparedness except for the Polytechnic Ibadan because of the school leadership transition. It is therefore recommended that in 2024 the following two polytechnics should benefit; Federal Polytechnic, Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State and Federal Polytechnic, Ede, Osun State for 2025 the committee recommends Federal Polytechnic, Ilaro, Ogun State and The Polytechnic Ibadan, if they can sort out their preparations.
“South-South: The committee recommends Port Harcourt Polytechnic, Rimuola, Rivers State, and Akwa Ibom State Polytechnic Ikot Osunaa for 2024 TETFund Special Intervention. For the year 2025, the committee recommends Delta State Polytechnic and another polytechnic to be identified
“South-East: The Institute of Management and Technology has been recommended for 2024 and for 2025, Abia State Polytechnic, Aba and Federal Polytechnic, Oko.
“North-East: The committee recommends Federal Polytechnic, Bauchi and Ramat Polytechnic, Maiduguri for 2024 Intervention and Adamawa State Polytechnic and Tatari Ali Polytechnic for 2025.
“North-West: 2024 Birnin Kebbi, Daura for 2025 Kano State Poly, Sokoto State Poly and North-Central: 2024 Nasarawa and for 2025 Lokoja and Ilorin.
FG threatens to stop funding tertiary institutions with poor performance
Education
Disclose top 2024 UTME scorers, lawyer tells JAMB
Disclose top 2024 UTME scorers, lawyer tells JAMB
An Abuja-based lawyer, Chief Chukwuma Nwachukwu, has taken action against the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) for withholding information about the top scorers in the recently released 2024 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) results. In response, Nwachukwu has invoked the Freedom of Information Act (FOI) against the examination body.
In a letter addressed to JAMB, Nwachukwu requested to be provided with the names and scores of the top 10 candidates in the 2024 UTME within seven days, as mandated by the FOI Act. He expressed dissatisfaction with JAMB’s decision to withhold this information despite providing a breakdown of candidates’ performance on April 29.
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Specifically addressing the Registrar General of JAMB, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, Nwachukwu demanded: “The names and scores of the 10 best students and their respective performances in the above examination.”
JAMB recently announced that the results of 64,624 candidates were withheld while releasing the results of 1,842,464 candidates. Prof. Oloyede stated that the withheld results were under investigation for verification, procedural investigation, and alleged examination misconduct.
Furthermore, he revealed that 2,896 candidates were under investigation for verification, 4,594 for procedural investigation, and 57,056 for centre-based investigation in 18 centres across Edo, Akwa Ibom, Delta, and Kwara.
Disclose top 2024 UTME scorers, lawyer tells JAMB
Education
UniAbuja: ASUU declares indefinite strike over disagreement with varsity management
UniAbuja: ASUU declares indefinite strike over disagreement with varsity management
University of Abuja’s branch of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has declared an indefinite strike.
The union announced the decision on Thursday during a congress held at the permanent site of the institution.
A communique issued by the varsity’s branch of the union declared the “total and indefinite strike” over a lingering disagreement with the UniAbuja management.
The issues involve ASUU’s interest in a multi-stakeholder microfinance banking venture; promotion procedures in the absence of a governing council, election for faculty deanship, and alleged illegal appointments.
Abubakar Kari, the UniAbuja student affairs dean and ex-convener of ASUU’s national political committee, confirmed the development.
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