Kwara State government, on Wednesday, presented various categories of awards to 60 outstanding teachers from public primary and secondary schools, including state-owned tertiary institutions to mark the 2022 world teachers’ day celebration.

Speaking at the event which had a large turnout of teachers in Ilorin, Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq, also announced plans by his administration to float a housing scheme loan for teachers in the state in collaboration with the Federal Government.

Some of the outstanding teachers went home with gifts ranging from laptops, Smart TV, deep freezers, microwaves, and mobile phones, among others.

The theme for this year’s celebration is “The Transformation of Education Begins With Teachers”.

A breakdown of the best teachers’ awards saw 48 teachers from primary and secondary schools across the 16 local government areas of the state receiving awards for best-performing teachers in primary, Junior Secondary and Senior Secondary schools’ categories.

A teacher each from the state School for Special Needs, Ilorin and Nomadic primary school in the state also got awards for best-performing teachers.

Also, the best-performing lecturers from nine tertiary institutions including the Ilorin International Aviation College and International Vocational Centre, Ajase-Ipo also got awards of best-performing lecturers.

The state chairman of the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), Comrade Oyewo Bashir Adeshina, said the awards, sponsored by the governor was “the first of its kind to be introduced in the world teachers’ day celebration in the state”.

He commended Governor Abdulrazaq for his huge investment in the welfare and transformation of the education sector in the state.

In his keynote address, Professor Stephen Olajide of the faculty of Education, University of Ilorin, noted that the awards for the deserved teachers was a challenge for them to do more.

“It is a challenge because to whom much is given, much is expected. You will need to do more in terms of classroom activities and monitoring of your students.

“You also need to help yourselves to ensure that this government continue because if a government can give you this, next year, it will be giving you cars”, he said.

The university teacher also challenged the teachers to” justify government’s huge investment in education, adding that government alone cannot fund education.

Olajide, who said that though UNESCO had advocated that governments should allocate 25 per cent of their annual budget to the funding of the education sector, added that realising such might be difficult for governments because of other demands competing for available resources.