Kano State Commissioner for Education, Umar Haruna Doguwa, has described the free education policy of the immediate past administration in the state as fundamentally flawed and not capable of yielding positive outcomes.
“The fact that many primary and secondary schools in the state lacked furniture, appropriate infrastructure, and other resources, as well as a poor boarding school feeding plan, among other things, indicates that the policy was indisputably defective,” he said.
The commissioner made the observation during an unscheduled inspection of selected public secondary schools in the state. At GGASS Tumfafi, Dawakin Tofa Local Government Area, it was noted that the classes were congested with students seated on bare floors, as nine out of the 16 classes had no furniture at all, while the rest had only a few chairs and desks.
The school, with 1,808 students, has 21 teachers. A block of classrooms initiated in the school by the Tumfafi community was left abandoned, a project which the commissioner promised to complete as it would help in decongesting some classes.
At Government Technical College Dambatta, Doguwa noted that the past administration failed to renovate the college’s four destroyed hostels, forcing the 530 students to reside in stuffy conditions in two hostels, which are also begging for renovation.
The college’s rear fence also collapsed a long time ago, making it liable to all forms of insecurity.
Doguwa had requested that IDEAS, a World Bank-funded project working to improve infrastructure in science and technical schools in the state, whose project officer was present during the visit, focus on renovating the shattered hostel. He also directed that other projects scheduled for the college be aligned with the plans of the state government to improve teaching and learning.
The commissioner also visited GGAC, Goron Dutse, a girls’ secondary school in Kano Municipality, among other schools.
