In an effort to standardizing the educational system, 15 existing schools are to be converted to boarding with well equipped laboratories. The Kaduna State Commissioner of Education, Prof. Andrew Nok disclosed this to journalists in a press conference held at the Nigerian Union of Journalists Correspondents Chapel recently while giving an update on the education sector.

Professor Nok said his ministry is aggressively pursuing the course and that the recent bill passed on compulsory education for school age children when fully operational would avail every child the opportunity to go to school and that penalty awaits parents who err. Zainab Tanimu was there for Top Celebrities Magazine. Excerpts:

Sir, how many schools are you converting to boarding?

In this phase, 15 schools are undergoing renovations. We are pursuing quite aggressively the renovation and upgrading of all the primary and secondary schools. Among the 15 schools to be upgraded and converted to boarding are, Queen Amina College Kaduna; Government Girls Secondary School, Kawo, Kaduna; Government Technical College, Malali; Barewa College, Zaria; Government College, Kagoro; Alhudahuda; Rimi College; Government Girls College, Zonkwa and Government Girls Secondary School, Giwa. You may want to know why we are particular in doing this. I want to particularly take the case of Rimi College and Government College, Kaduna. You know these are completely day institutions. Government intends to return them back to boarding institutions as such we have to effectively activate their dometries and hostels, the  kitchen facilities, the library facilities, the clinic and quite a number of things that involve landscaping the school totally to give it an aural of academic environment. We have completed work as to who has done a good job for us in the primary and some secondary schools renovation. What is found in most of these schools is what is called the ‘multi user’ laboratory. There is nothing like multi user laboratory. It is unacceptable. We intend to properly upgrade their laboratories. They are expected to have separate laboratories. A laboratory for biology, a laboratory for physics, one for chemistry and a separate one for Agric science. So we are doing all it takes to ensure that these things are fast tracked.

Sir, now that some of these schools are intended to be reverted to boarding schools, what measures have you put in place to ensure their safety to avoid being attacked by hoodlums? 

With regards to safety and security of our children, we intend to completely fence them and have securities to hang around the schools to ensure that they are safe. Once they become boarding schools, those you fear would encroach into the school premises would realize that these schools are under a different form of control. So there would be no such problem.

The recent bill on compulsory education passed is to commence in September. Sir, could you shed light on it. Does it attract any penalty?

Yes the bill has been passed into law but I would not be able to tell you point by point the penalty involved. With the introduction of compulsory education, no child would give the reason that he has never had a chance to go to school because it is free. Certainly there are very serious penalties for parents who refuse to send their children to school. Same goes for the issue of begging. For you who give alms and the person who receives, there is a penalty. And for parents who send their children to hawk around, there is a penalty for that too. When the law is fully activated, the public would be availed more information by the media segment of government house.

There is this worrisome issue of the Almajiris. (children begging). Most of these children are going into drugs instead of being integrated into the school system. What is the state government doing about this?

We have both junior primary and junior secondary schools. The Almajiri system would completely be integrated into the conventional education which we have in the state. Be that as it may, you want to know if we are still managing the Almajiri schools. The answer is yes. What we want to do is to completely integrate them into our government schools. The fact that government is going to offer free education to primary schools and junior secondary schools makes it easy. As for the social aspect, this would naturally be handled by the time they are fully integrated. It would interest you to know that we are working out a memo with Ministry of Women Affairs jointly with some stake holders. We already have a document that is before the council; hopefully, in a fortnight from now we would be able to discuss it concretely. All these things are to fit in into the major frame work that we intend to implore to see that our children have the best form of education.

Sir, how do you hope to solve the issue of shortages of teachers especially now that you hope to have more intakes of students with the passing of the compulsory education bill into law?

I would like to bring to your notice that the so-called level 17, the Director Tutor’s status was recently introduced and at least we have about 15 to 17 of such people who were able to scale the interview to get the Director Tutor status. These are actually meant to upgrade what we have in schools as they would serve as role models. These are people having permanent secretary status who would help us beef up our teaching base in order to have excellence in our schools.

I know you must have heard pockets of complaint as regards to unpaid salaries. I wish to inform you that we have paid 2.2billion naira (5months salaries) to about 1,300 employed recently recruited staff of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology.