40% of Yobe pupils are out-of-school, says Committee

A technical committee set up by the Yobe state government to revitalise Basic and Secondary Education in the state has said that enrolment of eligible pupils in schools is 60 percent while about 40 percent are out-of-school.

The chairman of the Committee, Prof Mala Daura, stated this on Monday, when he alongside his members submitted an interim report to Governor Mai Mala Buni, at the Government House in Damaturu.

Prof Daura revealed that the decline in the role of traditional institutions was responsible for the low enrolment and retention in the schools, hence the need to revamp their roles.

He noted that the data generated by the committee through primary and secondary sources had also indicated that the sector is faced with challenges of overstretched resources relating to teachers, infrastructure and other facilities.

“There are inadequacies in the quality of teachers at the basic and secondary schools in the state. Also, teachers were poorly trained, poorly remunerated and generally poorly looked after,” he said.

According to their findings, he said, 30 percent of teachers in the state have no teaching qualification, which contributed to poor students’ performance in SSCE, NECO and other examinations.

The chairman also stated that there was gross deficit of about 70 percent in the number of functional classrooms in the schools, which resulted in overcrowding of 180 students per class as against the state adopted benchmark of 1:40.

Daura explained that the committee had visited 1,439 schools for baseline survey and discovered that over 90 percent of the pupils in the schools have resorted to seat on wood logs and stones due to no access to desk in primary schools.

In his remarks, the state governor commended the committee for a job well-done and promised to implement the approved recommendation in the short, medium and long term basis appropriately and within the limit of available resources at his disposal.

He directed the Secretary to the state government, (SSG), Baba Malam Wali to study the recommendation of the technical committee for immediate implementation by the government in conjunction with relevant agencies.