Professor Isa Chamo, the Commissioner for Higher Education, Science and Technology in Jigawa State has said that Governor Umar Namadi has invested more than N20 billion in education in less than two years of his administration.

Chamo spoke on Friday night on the sideline of the 14th Anniversary and Award Ceremonies of the Nigerian NewsDirect in Lagos.

The commissioner was part of the top government functionaries dispatched to receive the newspaper’s Governor of the Year Award in Agro-Investments and Security for Namadi.

“Governor Namadi spent over N20,000,000,000 invested in education in Jigawa state under the present administration, ” the commissioner said.

According to him, the governor has recorded a giant push for higher education in the state by employing over 3000 teachers and building school infrastructure to provide a quality learning environment.

He said that the number of teachers in the state was raised from 2, 566 in May 2023, to 5,986.

Chamo said that the administration had procured and distributed over 10,000 3-seater desks for students while 5,000 staff furniture was provided at various schools.

The commissioner added that 3,500 double beds were procured and distributed to boarding schools with 3,840 mattresses to go with them.

He said that 564 tabs were distributed to senior secondary school principals to enhance digital learning skills amongst teachers while 300 routers were procured and distributed.

Chamo said the Namadi’s administration had ensured the provision of internet connectivity across the 293 senior secondary schools in the state to ensure access to a wide range of educational and information resources.

He said that over N200 million has been used to develop a digital teaching and learning platform tagged J-Compete programme, which he said, has helped both teachers and students with numerous resources in the learning environment.

The commissioner said that Namadi’s administration had improved school feeding by 200 per cent from N180 per student to N450 per student.

He said that this had made expenditure for school feeding programmes to rise from N1.1 billion to N3.4 billion annually.

According to him, the government had carried out various capacity training programmes for teachers, school principals and directors to enhance their capacity.

He said that the administration had carried out several interventions including the Female Teacher Development Scheme, Girls for Health Program, free school uniforms for girls, and registration fees for law students among others

He said that the Namadi administration constructed new classrooms, laboratories, administrative blocks, hostels, a library, kitchen, laundry, sports fields and toilets in all senior secondary schools including science and technical schools.

“School structures were renovated at the cost of N2,268,211,583 with the procurement of teaching, learning, instructional materials and sports material amounting to N5,791,510,414.

“Payment of internal and external Examination at the sum N1,001,614,221 while schools feeding consumed the sum of N2,127,060,850.

“The administration spent the sum of N4,776,688,726 on foreign scholarship while internal scholarship consumed N1,904,592,925, with the total amount standing at N6,681,281,651,” he said.

Similarly, Dr Hauwa Alhassan, Technical Adviser to Gov.Umar Namadi on Basic Education said that the administration had taken basic education to the top of the charts.

Alhassan said that with the implementation and success of the J-Teach Programme, the governor had addressed the shortage of teachers in rural and underserved areas, “with notable improvements in teaching quality and student engagement”.

She said that the state had improved collaboration with NGOs and strong partnerships with organisations like PLAN and PLANE for educational development and empowerment of educators.

“The administration has enhanced inclusion of children with disabilities, introduced specialised programmes and infrastructure, to ensure access to quality education for children with disabilities,” she said.

Alhassan said that the governor had invested in Nomadic Schools, “which expanded educational opportunities for nomadic communities, ensuring access to education irrespective of their mobility”.

The adviser said that under Namadi’s administration, strategic interventions were made to revert the schools used as IDP camps back into functional educational institutions.

She said that the governor had put special focus on Early Childhood Education, foundational literacy and numeracy programmes.

Meanwhile, Namadi, who was represented by Malam Bala Ibrahim, the Secretary to the State Government to receive the award, said he was pleased with the recognition and happy his contributions to the development of his state and the people were being acknowledged.

The governor, who dispatched top government functionaries, including two commissioners and three technical advisers to receive the award, said that he was highly elated with the recognition of his investments in agriculture, security, education and health for the benefit of the people.

Namadi said that the award would serve as an inspiration to do more and work for the betterment of the people.