28th May, 2017
Benue Government says it has constructed 740 primary schools while several others are undergoing renovation.
Its commissioner for Education, Science and Technology, Prof Dennis Ityavyar, disclosed this in Makurdi on Sunday.
He said the administration of Governor Samuel Ortom was committed to laying a solid foundation for primary education in the state.
“During our last round of supervision, we discovered that majority of the primary schools were completed while work was ongoing on a few others.
“Our emphasis is to lay a solid foundation of education both through policies and structures.”
He also said the administration was discussing with the Federal Government toward converting the state College of Education in Katsina Ala to a Federal College of Education since none existed in the state.
He described the graduation of 152 medical doctors from the Benue State University, after 12 years of stagnation, as one of the most significant milestones of the administration.
The commissioner also disclosed that 1038 illegal secondary schools had been earmarked for closure at the end of the current academic session.
He said this was due to poor learning standards far below the requirements of the state.
The commissioner said stakeholders in education sector and traditional rulers were involved in the decision for the closure and were assisting the state to close them.
He, however, assured that the closure would not affect students and staff of such schools and explained that they would be transferred to other schools.
“Gov Samuel Ortom’s first two years in office were primarily aimed at strengthening education policies and improving education infrastructures.
“In our first two years in office we were primarily focused on strengthening the educational sector through the new polices and physical infrastructures.
“The visitations panel on all the tertiary institutions is to enable government to ascertain the needs of such individual schools and provide solutions to them.
“The first result of the panel is the reasonable tranquillity witnessed in all the tertiary institutions in the state including Benue State University, which is currently on strike over unpaid allowances six years ago.”
He disclosed that the government had also concluded plans to handover all grant-aided secondary schools to original owners for full control of the schools.
The commissioner further said that government had proposed N500m in the 2017 budget as support to all grant-aided schools that would be returned to owners in 2017, adding that the welfare of teachers would still be considered.
He said that the Benue Government had only 64 secondary schools and had approved N250m for the comprehensive renovation of Government College, Makurdi.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), reports that over 600 secondary schools were grant-aided in the state.