?The federal government said it is working towards rejuvenating the existing unity schools across the country with a view to positioning them as befitting learning centres. The minister of state for education, Barrister Ezenwo Nyesom Nwike disclosed this in Kano.
The minister, who was on inspection visit to the Federal Government College, Kano, expressed satisfaction with the maintenance culture of the college. “I think they have some maintenance culture and I want them to continue with that and from what we have seen in the classrooms, we are trying to see how we can upgrade it.” He said.
According to him, “we are phasing them as next year we will take some schools, the other year we will take more schools. By the time we finish the 4 years, we would have reasonably solved 80 per cent of the problems. I don’t want to tell you that all the schools would be taken at the same time.”
The minister who was accompanied on the visit by the chairman of House of Representatives committee on education, Hon Farouk M. Lawan, said the project will focus on three main sectors including revamping libraries, classrooms and hostel accommodation for students.
“Our concern is to bring back the library, stock it with books so that the reading culture can come back to our students and then improve on the existing classrooms and the hostels. These are the three basic things we have to tackle.
“Luckily, I am here with the chairman of the education committee so that it is not only a matter for the executive arm of government to solve but that the national assembly should also see what we are also talking about. He has come with me and he has seen the whole thing and we are going to go back to put our heads together to see what we can do to improving our educational system.” The minister explained.
On his part, Hon Lawan, said, “I understand that there are challenges with the major being insufficient teachers that the principal has complained about. We will sit down with the executives and we will work towards ensuring that enough teachers are made available in the school.
“The insufficient hostels in the school also needs to be addressed and this is so because this is a school that is sited in a very populous state like Kano and given the large population of Kano, we need to ensure that the college has the capacity to enrol more students and to do that the facilities need to be upgraded and expanded and I can assure you that together with the executive and the legislature, we will come to a suitable conclusion.
“We will be very passionate about improvement in our unity schools and we are going to sit down together through the 2012 budget and see what provisions can be made so that FGC Kano becomes one of the centres of excellence. The whole idea of having federal government colleges is aimed at showcasing the standards that a school should be and unfortunately, we think that we have lost that due to neglect.” He opined.