From Noah Ebije, Kaduna
Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-rufai, yesterday, announced the immediate re-opening of all tertiary institutions closed down in Southern Kaduna, since December 2016.
The schools included the College of Education, Gidan Waya, Kaduna State University (KASU), Kafanchan campus and School of Nursing and Midwife, Kafanchan.
The state government closed down the schools following crisis between herders and farmers, which was believed to escalate to the the schools’ premises.
Receiving stakeholders from Southern Kaduna, El-rufai disclosed that due to improvement in the security situation in the district, the state government decided to re-open all tertiary institutions in the area.
The governor also disclosed that the state government had decided to adopt a multi-campus structure for all its tertiary institutions and that at least, one tertiary institution would be assigned to every local government area in the state.
According to him, the new policy was approved by the State Executive Council as a means to further expand access to higher education, make accreditation of courses more cost-effective and respond concretely to the desire by several communities to host tertiary institutions.
He also explained that a multi-campus structure will help to make the state’s tertiary institutions more inclusive and expand the range of courses that students can study by making most courses available
“This multi-campus policy will be implemented in a way that assigns at least one tertiary institution to each of the 23 local government areas.
“The laws of some of our institutions are already being amended to reflect this.”
The governor thanked the delegation, which included Air Commodore Emmanuel Jekada (Rtd) and Bishop George Dodo, Catholic Bishop of Zaria, for helping to stabilize and restore peace in the affected local government areas.
He acknowledged that several persons invested their time, connection and resources in the cause of peace.