From Olanrewaju Lawal, Birnin Kebbi
The Kebbi State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) has disclosed that it had procured and distributed 1,261 tablets to primary schools and recorded 374,855 attendance of pupils in schools.
The Executive Chairman of Kebbi State SUBEB, Professor Suleiman Khalid, stated this at the Public Schools Verification Programme held in Birnin Kebbi, the state capital alongside the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) to ascertain areas of need in public primary schools.
According to Khalid: ” I invite you to note the deployment of technology in our dear state. DLI 7 deals with the deployment of digital attendance and record keeping in schools. Under this programme, our pupils in the state will be daily monitored and this will no doubt assist in tracking and monitoring the attendance, check-in and check-out of pupils and teachers in schools.
“Today, classroom attendance stood at 374,855 pupils representing roughly 67 per cent of the pupils in the primary is monitored digitally across the state.”
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Khalid explained that the deployment of digital attendance record keeping would assist the School Based Management Committees, Education Administrators, Local Government Education Authorities and SUBEB to act swiftly on the issue of attendance of pupils in schools and ensure a high level of retention of pupils.
He disclosed that some major achievements of the board include the establishment of 5,400 non-formal learning centres made up of the following; 3,943 Interested Qur’anic Schools, 1,751 Girl Child Centres and 156 Nobody Child Centres with a total enrollment of 790,500 learners.
“We have engaged the services of 15,810 facilitators, we provided shades, two sets of toilets an open dug well and other sources of water to 1,008 Integrated Primary Schools (IQS), we are also providing a monthly stipend of N5,000 to each of the 3,943 IQS proprietors and we have provided centre improvement grant to each centre management committee the sum of N50,000 to 3943 IQS centres,” he said.
In his speech, the Kebbi State Commissioner for Basic and Secondary Education, Alhaji Muhammad Magawata-Aliero recalled that in the year 2000, African member nations met in Dakar, Senegal and proposed “Education For All” by 2015 “meaning that by 2015 no member nation will have out-of-school children.”
He, however, said, by 2015, Nigeria according to reports recorded 11.4 million or there about of out-of-school children, while in many countries there were zero or less.
On his part, the NBS State Officer, Kebbi, Malam Sa’idu Sale said the exercise was expected to cover 17 states, assuring that of the affected states, “Kebbi has the highest number of schools totalling 7,217 to cover, more than any other states to be covered.
“I want to assure you that all schools will be visited, we are going to conduct a five-day training for our staff, I am assuring you that we have our staff in all the 21 Local Government Areas of the state and we are going do justice to the exercise,” he noted.