Governor Aminu Masari of Katsina State, on Thursday, disclosed that the State Government would soon establish no fewer than 160 additional secondary schools in the state.
He also revealed that the state would soon disburse over N2 billion in grants to 578 junior and senior secondary schools in the state.
He disclosed this during the launch of the disbursement of $5,092,000 (N2,113,180,000) tagged, School Improvement Grant to all junior and senior secondary schools in the state through the School Based Management Committees, under the Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning ad Empowerment project.
The Governor explained that the project was being implemented after the fulfilment of certain conditions as agreed between the state and the World Bank as part of plans to strengthen community support and ownership of schools.
He urged all the SBMC members to ensure judicious utilisation of the grants, declaring, “Our plan (is) to gradually hand over some aspects of schools management to communities.”
Governor Masari assured that construction work would soon begin on the 160 new secondary schools to be constructed through the AGILE project.
He added that the project would increase children’s access to education.
The state Commissioner for Education, Dr Badamasi Charanchi, in his remarks at the occasion, revealed that the academic performance of secondary school students in the state had improved following the provision of teachers, learning materials and infrastructure, among others, to schools in the state.
“From 2007 to 2014, the performance of secondary school students at SSCE stood at only 19 per cent; that is out of 417,576 candidates that sat for SSCE, only 79,044 (19 per cent) obtained five credits and above in any subject.
“During Governor Aminu Masari led administration from 2015 to 2021, a total of 475,988 candidates sat for SSCE out of which 354,610 (74.49 per cent) scored five credits and above in any subject. This is unprecedented,” he declared.
