.Lawmakers assure on PHC delivery in 2017 budge
Plans by the Governor Abubarkar Sani Bello led government revive Teachers Training Colleges (TTCs) may have hit the rock. Many stakeholders have criticised the move, saying that it would lower the standards of education and thereby discourage teachers from aspiring to acquire Degrees or something more.
Niger State government at a press conference in Minna expressed plans to revert some secondary schools, one in each of the three senatorial districts, to TTCs, including Government Girls Secondary School (GGSS), near Government House, Minna.
State Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology, Hajiya Fatima Madugu, who was represented by the Permanent Secretary in the ministry, Alhaji Adamu Shuaibu, however did not give the names of the two other schools to be converted to TTCs.
The commissioner had informed journalists that reviving some of the TTCs, is part of measures to fill the gap created by shortfall of teaching staff, particularly at the primary schools in all the 25 local government councils in the state.
“I see this new order as more of promoting Teachers Grade Two as basic teaching qualifications for those in the teaching profession and by this many will prefer to just get TTC certificate instead of aspiring for higher qualifications”, a teacher who simply gave his name as Sule said.
Sule argued that promoting TTC at this stage may not be the best for Niger State, insisting that, it will even be better engage some jobless Degree holders interested in teaching. The government can organize training courses on the basics they need to know in teaching instead.
“The former administration introduced University of Education with the aim of improving on teachers’ qualifications to improve on the performances of students. With this new plan, I don’t know if we are moving forward in education or retrogressing,” another teacher, Ibrahim said.
And for Mr. Justin Bello, the best thing for government to do is to engage hundreds of unemployed graduates roaming the streets to teach instead of wasting money on reviving and/or establishing new training schools.
Bello, a trained engineer, described the new plan as ‘another policy summersault’, arguing that, the state government should have made use of jobless youths roaming the streets in search of jobs by converting some of them willing to teachers.
“Except for this their indigene and non-indigene thing; if not I am aware that a good number of unemployed graduates even those from Niger state who will be willing to be engaged as teachers to fill the shortfall in teaching staff”, Bello said.
According to him, instead of wasting money to establish TTCs which may be given wrong signals to whatever the government is trying to do, why can’t they work towards organizing some kind of induction or refresher courses for the willing ones and then post them to areas where they can work side-by-side qualified teachers.
Meanwhile, the Speaker, Niger State House of Assembly (NSHA), Ahmed Marafa, has assured of the state legislature’s preparedness to ensure transformation in the health sector of the state economy.
He promised that the assembly would make the sector more responsive to the health needs of the entire citizenry.
The speaker also assured that the assembly would give the 2017 budget all the necessary legislative and supervisory backing to ensure speedy transformation of the sector particularly the Primary Health Care (PHC) services at the grassroots to check maternal and child deaths.
Marafa made the promise when he granted audience to the Federation of Muslim Women’s Associations in Nigeria (FOMWAN), Niger State chapter, at the Usman Jikantoro House of Assembly complex in Minna, the state capital.
In the 2017 budget, Marafa said that all the local government areas would have at least a general hospital of its own while they would ensure that all the 274 wards have at least a PHC to attend to the health needs of the suffering of the masses.
“No right thinking government pays lip service to its healthcare system because you need to be healthy to give out your best to your immediate society. Today if any of your family members is not healthy definitely you are also not healthy and this affects you negatively,” he said.
Commending the women group for the visit, Marafa said, “Your paper presentation is straight to the point. You have enumerated point by point the challenges in the health sector and proffered solutions. Indeed you have made our jobs easier because we are thinking in the same direction”.
As an arm of government and to ensure checks and balances in service delivery, the Speaker said, “We will support you to achieve your goals especially in the health sector so that our citizens will have access affordable medical treatment”.
Chairperson of FOMWAN in Niger State, Dr. Fati Sheikh Abdullah, had informed the Speaker that one of the commonest diseases affecting children – pneumonia and diarrheoea –
are responsible for at least 24 percent deaths among children of below five years in Niger State.
Pneumonia and diarrhea infections, according to Abdallah, are the third and single killers of children in Nigeria, adding that Niger State has 195, 000 out of which 19, 000 die before they attain the age of five.
