By Haruna Aliyu

The executive chairman kebbi state universal basic education board professor Sulaiman Khalid has said that last year alone through sustained advocacy in the rural areas of the state and in a collaborative efforts between his board, UNICEF, CSO and NGOs were able to returned to school 86,000 out of school children, those successfully returned included almajiris and children of normads.

Khalid who spoke in his office in Birnin Kebbi on Thursday added that such are among concerted efforts being made by Kebbi state government to boost basic primary education in the state, he said during the year under review at least 1,58 classroom were renovated and 42,242 pieces of furniture were supplied to public primary schools while 518 new classrooms were constructed to decongest the existing schools.

In addition to that, professor Khalid stated that 450 WC toilet were installed and 158 boreholes and hand power water system were dug, to boost computer literacy of the pupils in the state he  said at least 16 ICT centers has been established ” you see with limited resources at our disposal we are moving at high speed to ensure every child in the state gets basic education, every almajiri on the street is a missed and we don’t want that, so people should speak the good side of the government not the bad side always.

On what the number of out of school children will be in the next five years in Kebbi, he said already the board in collaboration with UNICEF and other development partners in education have planned to returned yet another 130 thousands out of school children envisaging that in the next five years Kebbi will record zero out of school children.

Khalid who decried low pupils enrollments in rural areas said the problem of education is not the structures but parents failure in the rural areas to enroll their children but pledged to continue with the advocacy to create awareness in order to give the state government value for the monies being expanded to boost education.