GOVERNOR Abba Yusuf of Kano State has declared a state of emergency in the education sector.
The governor made this declaration while distributing educational materials to schools, awarding scholarship to students and soft loans to teachers on Saturday.
At the event, the governor announced that the state government has recruited over 5,000 new teachers, with 10,000 more to be employed, while 1,000 classrooms would be constructed across the 44 local government areas in the state.
According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Kano has about a million out-of-school children as at October 2023.
This prompted the state government to declare a state of emergency in the state, with the aim of delivering quality education in the state.
According to Governor Yusuf, the initiative is aimed at providing the required manpower for public schools in the state to provide quality education.
The governor said that the era of pupils receiving lectures under harsh conditions was over.
He pledged to ensure a total rehabilitation and provision of furniture for public schools in the state.
“The declaration of a state of emergency in education is a bold step towards addressing the challenges facing the sector.
“The government’s commitment to providing basic learning materials and infrastructure will go a long way in improving the quality of education in the state,” he said.
Yusuf said the move was to ensure that every child in the state had access to a conducive learning environment.
He used the opportunity to highlight the crisis facing the state’s education sector, painting a stark picture of a system in dire need of reform.
“Over 4.7 million pupils are forced to sit on bare floors to learn, while 400 schools have only one teacher for all classes and subjects,” he said.