Pupil enrolment increases by 64 per cent in Kaduna — Commissioner

The Kaduna State Commissioner for Education, Dr Shehu Adamu-Danfulani, has said that the free education programme of the Gov. Nasiru El-Rufa’i’s administration has increased pupil’s enrolment by 64 per cent.

Adamu-Danfulani made the disclosure in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Zaria on Sunday.

He said that some parents could not send their children to school because of the school fees of N200.

According to him, the policy decision of the El-Rufai administration to cancel the N200 school fees has increased enrolment in schools by about 64 per cent.

Until I was appointed a commissioner and until the declaration by Gov. El-Rufa’i, I never thought that some pupils could not go to school because some parents could not pay N200.

When we visited some primary schools, we met teaming parents that were now registering their children in schools, even as some of these pupils were older than the age of starting school.

Some of the parents complained that they brought the children to school late because they could not afford the school fees, but now that education is free, they could gladly bring them,’’ he said.

The commissioner, who said that education remained a priority of the present administration, pledged that government would partner with any organisations willing to support education development.

Adamu-Danfulani said the renovation of 300 schools across the state had since begun, apart from the recruitment of 2,226 science teachers to further promote education.

Recently, we found out that there was an acute shortage of teachers in our secondary schools, particularly in core science subjects, which informed the government approval to recruit more hands.

I have visited a school, where I was surprised to be informed that they didn’t have a physics teacher in the last five years. (NAN)