By Philip Yatai

The Kaduna State Government says it will upgrade facilities in public secondary schools to stem the exodus of students to “miracle centres” for the May/June West African Senior Secondary School Examination (WASSCE).

Malam Ja’afaru Sani, the Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology, stated this on Tuesday, at Government College, Saminaka, when he visited the institution to assess ongoing renovations there.

“I have just been informed that the number of Senior Secondary School III (SS III), students in this school have reduced from 100 to 32.

“It appears that most SSS III students leave public secondary schools to private schools or `miracle centres’ where they pay huge amounts to write their Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination, conducted by WAEC and NECO, because of the state of facilities in our public schools.

“I want to assure you that the current administration is working very hard to address this problem.

“We are not going to only provide the needed facilities to make public schools attractive, but equally ensure that our teachers are equipped with the needed skills to provide quality teaching for improved learning outcomes,” the commissioner said.

Sani said that a substantial amount of money had been set aside in the 2019 budget for capital projects in public schools.

“The idea is to ensure that we offer quality service so as to get qualiy results,” he said.

He also said that “reasonable funds’ had been set aside in the 2019 budget for training and retraining of teachers to boost their capacity.

He reiterated government’s commitment to transforming the education sector for improved service delivery, saying that libraries had been equipped, while laboratories and workshops had been constructed and equipped to enhance acquisition of practical skills.

“We will build new structures to de-congest the classrooms; we have also recruited qualified teachers for secondary schools and will soon deploy them to various schools based on need.

“Our goal is to upgrade public schools to be at same level with private schools, if not higher, in terms of quality of teaching and learning.

“We have maintained our position as number one in the North and 12th in the country in the performance ladder of the May/June WAEC examinations; we want to improve on that.

“We will continue to work with you to ensure that our students get the best of education and compete comfortably with their counterparts from any part of the world,” he said.

Some of the teachers, who spoke during the interaction, thanked the commissioner for the visit and the efforts to improve the state of facilities in the school, including teachers’ welfare.

The Principal of the school, Malam Yahaya Isa, said that the visit had boosted the morale of the teachers and provided them the opportunity to voice out their suggestions, concerns and fears.

Isa said that the presence of the commissioner had reassured the school that government was serious about improving standard and quality in public schools.