Hope for Bauchi’s education sector

BY PRINCE KOLA OYERINDE

Those who have followed the pronouncements of the Bauchi state governor, Bala Mohammed, will confirm that he says what he means and means what he says. Thus, when he declared an emergency in education during his inauguration for his second term on May 29, 2023, no one with even a faint knowledge of the governor’s track record would have doubted that the sector would soon witness a comprehensive overhaul.

To appreciate the context of this planned disruption of the status quo, it is pertinent to understand the concept of a state of emergency. A state of emergency would usually come into force under conditions such as when a disaster suddenly happens upon a people like an earthquake, hurricane or wildfire. It also becomes applicable where a problem that threatens a people’s well-being or overall progress such as an epidemic or the nationwide out-of-school children syndrome has defied every constitutional provision or legitimate effort of a government.

Put differently, a state of emergency allows a government to introduce extraordinary measures to tackle the problem at hand. It does not translate to an indictment of the government; on the contrary, it takes creativity, courage and sincerity of purpose for a government to adopt it as a panacea to an intractable social problem such as the out-of-school pandemic. However, in the hands of despotic and clueless governments, a state of emergency can become a tool for repressing the people and an open sesame to corruption.

For Bauchi state, the big consolation is that through his record as minister of the FCT where he introduced the highly acclaimed land swap model to address the triple problem of paucity of funds, poor infrastructure and shortage of accommodation, Bala Mohammed demonstrated beyond disputation his credentials as a game changer who can be trusted to mastermind novel administrative initiatives and programmes.

In Bauchi state, signs that the envisaged radical overhaul underway emerged when he announced a restructuring of the ministry of education with the creation of the ministry of higher education to be manned by a renowned educationist, Lydia H. Tsammani, as commissioner for higher education while the former commissioner for education, Jamilla Mohammed Dahiru, retained her position.

In the fourth week of August, the governor upped the ante with the convocation of an education stakeholders’ gathering. Though details of the closed-door meeting are yet to emerge, sources at the event have dropped a hint about its theme. It was essentially, to review the proposals of the Usman Bugaje-led technical transition committee, harmonise them with the eight education wins contained in Bala Mohammed’s May 29 address and chart an implementation template that would lead to the attainment of the governor’s vision of restoring Bauchi state its erstwhile proud distinction as a net provider of human capital into the nation’s education sector.

Given the controversy surrounding the out-of-school problem in the state, it is not inconceivable that the governor’s detractors, even some genuinely sincere critics, could misinterpret the emergency in education as an admission that the governor failed in his first term. But that will amount to a gross distortion of reality. For one, it should be placed on record that the out-of-school debacle was one of the several challenges that the Bala Mohammed administration inherited from his predecessors. For another, the administration deserves credit for the various creative and robust initiatives that are targeted at tackling the problem.

The huge infrastructural intervention of the administration, the restoration of confidence in, and collaboration with development partners, the incentivisation of both staff and parents as well as huge capital injection have not only triggered renewed interest in school attendance and learning but led to improved performance in WAEC and NECO examinations.

While those achievements are there for anyone to see, for Bala Mohammed, success can only be defined when Bauchi sheds the toga of an educationally disadvantaged state, when products of its institutions unambiguously demonstrate the skill sets and competencies to satisfy local manpower demand and compete for places on the global scene and by extension when Bauchi state regains its previous distinction as an exporter of labour to the federal government and the international community in the education sphere. Those were the lofty dreams that informed the eight big education wins enunciated by the governor during his second inaugural address.

For a clearer understanding of this great vision, it would be appropriate to reproduce Bala Mohammed’s envisioned eight big education wins. In no special order, these are:

1. To de-politicise and solve the out-of-school problem thereby laying a solid foundation for achieving the administration’s education goals.
2. Redesigning the school curricula to achieve a mindset change in products of the educational system.
3. To establish a sustainable template for the rapid production of people with marketable digital skills.
4. To produce highly skilled hands for the oil and gas industry and related investments
5. To make Bauchi state a veritable destination for education tourism by leveraging the high number of tertiary institutions in the state
6. To guarantee result-oriented capacity-building schemes in the education value chain
7. To establish a sustainable funding model based on collaborative effort among stakeholders along the education value chain.
8. Enforcement of achievable timelines such that education becomes the benchmark for assessing the enjoyment of democracy dividends by the people of the state.

What is not clear is whether the Bauchi education stakeholders conclave ended up establishing the Education Emergency Engine Room which Bala Mohammed promised in his May 29 inaugural address. On that occasion, he had disclosed that the body “would constitute the situation room for driving the revolution in (our) education sector”. For effect, he stated that “membership of the engine-room will be drawn from various sectors, to confer multi-disciplinary expertise on the body”.

It is expected that in creating such a body whose mandate is to achieve the lofty dream of revolutionising education in Bauchi state, existing bodies that have already been charged with specific tasks in the education sector be given the space to discharge their mandates so far as they demonstrate the ability to deliver. One such group is the Emirate Council Education Committees.

It will be recalled that the committee is a special purpose arrangement to tackle, in Bauchi state, the out-of-school menace bedevilling the entire country. Established last October, it may be too early to determine its impact. However, it could not have outlived its usefulness given its basic advantage of proximity to the people as well as certain cultural underpinnings that will remain relevant, for all times, in securing the understanding and cooperation of people at the grassroots.

If Bala Mohammed’s passion for education, his solid bureaucratic and legislative backgrounds as well as never-say-die spirit are to be reckoned with, it will not be out of place to conclude that Bauchi state is poised to witness a revolutionary transformation in education. Thankfully, the governor has promised that his second term will be used to radically address the outstanding problems of the educational sector through adequate budgetary allocations and creative stakeholder engagement.

Despite Bala Mohammed’s track record as a visionary and achiever, it is a well-known fact that a general is only as effective in the field as his commanding officers. Thus, transforming Bauchi’s educational landscape will depend also on collaboration among all stakeholders starting from the Bauchi state house of assembly, the two commissioners in education, traditional and religious leaders, students’ union organisations and all those who have something to do with the people.

Ultimately, parents remain strategic stakeholders in the education enterprise. Therefore, the need for parents to cooperate with the government by sending their children to school cannot be over-emphasised. It is on this note that one wishes the governor every success as he plays the noble role of a game changer in not just Bauchi’s educational system but the entire political landscape of the state.