Date: 2016-12-02

Governor AbdulFatah Ahmed of Kwara has said that the Education Sector Support Programme in Nigeria has committed at least N450m to the development of basic education in the state.

Ahmed made the disclosure on Friday in Ilorin during an event organised by ESSPIN to mark its End-of-Programme Dissemination in Kwara.

The Governor, who was represented by the Secretary to the State Government, Alhaji Isiaka Gold, described the impact of ESSPIN in the state as a success story.

He noted that the money was spent by ESSPIN to support the provision of facilities in basic education schools.

He said, "Since commencement of ESSPIN's activities in Kwara State, About 28,554 of head teachers, assistant head teachers and classroom teachers had been trained.

"In the area of community collaboration, ESSPIN has trained, monitored and supported 1,435 School-Based Management Committee members and has contributed at least N450 million in cash and facilities for schools improvement across the state."

The governor also said ESSPIN had helped the government in the establishment of data base centres in all the 16 local government education authorities in the state.

Earlier, Mr. James Fadokun, State Team Leader of ESSPIN, noted that the organisation’s intervention in the education sector has coincided with the Every Child Count policy of the state government.

He cautioned that in spite of the successes recorded, there were some areas requiring intervention including teachers competency which went down to 76 per cent as against 85 pre cent in 2012.

Fadokun added that teachers performance on subject knowledge tests conducted by ESSPIN has worsened significantly since 2014.

"Only 30 per cent of teachers met the strict version of ESSPIN’s competence standard in 2016," he said.

The Kwara Commissioner for Education and Human Capital Development, Alhaji Musa Yeketi, commended ESSPIN, saying it had impacted the lives of over two million learners in about 10 years of its intervention in the state.