PLATEAU: Declaration of emergency yet to transform education
By Taye Obateru and Marie-Therese Nanlong
The state of education in Plateau State remains a far cry from the ideal despite the efforts of the state government to revamp the sector.

Although the Jang Administration in appreciation of the dire situation declared a state of emergency in the sector when it came into office years ago, many in the state feel that not much is on ground to show for the declaration.

A concerned citizen Lucas Dashe captured the situation thus: “Some tertiary institutions like the College of Agriculture, Garkawa, College of Health Technology, Pankshin are just glorified secondary schools without basic infrastructure and adequate manpower. Nothing is really on ground despite the state of emergency on the education sector and the huge amount allocated yearly. Either the funds are not fully accessed or some people are pilfering the money thereby leaving the schools, infrastructure and all to suffer”.

But the Commissioner for Education, Mr. Nanle Dashen dismissed such insinuations as he chronicled the various steps of the state government to revamp the sector. He told Saturday Vanguard that the sector had in the past suffered a lot of neglect which would take time to turn around.

He said the state of emergency declared on the sector is still on course and has yielded the desired results as the administration of Governor Jonah Jang has mustered the political will to put things right in the sector.

According to him, “ the education sector in the past has suffered so much and performance was dismal, to say the least. This government met many issues on ground but as it stands, the  backlog of 2005 which we met on ground has been cleared.

Saturday Vanguard’s check reveals that many primary schools in the 17 local government areas are benefiting from the renovation of structures though many more still beg for attention. Secondary schools like Science School, Kuru, Bukuru Technical School (BuTech), Government Girls School, Bokkos, Government Girls Science School, Shendam among others have been overhauled.

Also, tertiary institutions like the Plateau State Polytechnic, College of Health Technology, Zawan, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Vom, the Plateau State University, Bokkos among others have also received a face-lift with the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS), Kurgwi being upgraded and merged with the State University to serve people from the Southern part of the State.

However, in terms of human development, the government in 2007 gave especially the primary school teachers who were mostly Senior Secondary School Certificate holders teaching in the hinterlands opportunity to upgrade themselves or be flushed out of the system. Those who did not heed the warning were laid off and replaced with qualified teachers early this year.

However, despite the seeming improvement in infrastructure, there are still some grumblings within the sector as the State owned Polytechnic lecturers who were on strike for several months last year appear to still have unresolved issues

When Saturday Vanguard sought to clarify some issues with the Chairman of the state chapter of the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics, Mr. Victor Dawurung, he declined comments, but his body language indicated that all is not well..

Stakeholders spoken to were divided on their assessment of the state of  education in the state, with some giving kudos while others gave knocks to the government. A source from College of Education, Gindiri observed that there is a change in terms of infrastructure but lamented that human development is not being considered in terms of training and staff welfare. ”

We may talk of billions in terms of budgetary allocation but this is grossly inadequate because it is always shared among all tertiary institutions and sometimes, it is only on paper without full implementation. ”The money always allocated to us has not been able to address the needs of schools”.

Another resident, Agwom Itse said, “The government has tried but many primary and secondary schools in the villages are still eyesore because working materials and facilities that would lift the standard of education are lacking and their absence are affecting the productivity of teachers”.

The education commissioner reeled out the achievements of government to Vanguard: “Government has expended about N5billion on counterpart funding and other issues of basic education. Actual expenditure so far expended on the secondary schools exceeds N3billion. N1billion has been expended on long-lasting furniture for public schools in the State.

”The State University has equally benefited because government did not just make political statement nor launched a project and disappeared but N2billion has been sunk in projects in the institution and 17 people, one from each local government has been sponsored for PhD studies abroad.

”Other tertiary institutions in the State are not left out because, we are going to employ qualified staff in the next academic year. We have made good efforts to ensure conducive atmosphere for work as welfare issues have been addressed.

”Governing Councils for tertiary institutions have been constituted and will soon be announced and convocation which have not been held in years will take place on the 17 and 20 of this month for College of Education, Gindiri and State Polytechnic respectively”. Dashen acknowledged the discontent among some unions in the sector explaining that, “government-union issues are continuum. Some are prominent and some are not but once you solve the bigger demands, the smaller ones come up too but we are trying to ensure that everyone is comfortable”.

Many residents say they look forward to seeing more concrete benefits from the declaration of an emergency in the education sector more than they have seen in the past six years.