By Princess Simon (Bureau Chief North Central, in Minna)
As part of its effort at restructuring and revamping the education sector, the Niger state government says it has concluded plans to ensure that Degree Certificates as minimum required qualifications for teachers in secondary schools across the state.
Commissioner for Basic and Secondary Education, Dr. Hadiza Mohammed who disclosed this during the post-exco briefing, said part of the new order is the commencement of EarlyChild Care Development Education (ECCDE) aimed at restructuring community based teachers for effective and efficient services delivery.
To cushion the hardship on parents and guardians, Niger state government according to the Commissioner, will commence provision of transportation, uniforms, and as well offer scholarships for certain categories of students in the state.
From next academic session, Dr. Hadiza told journalists that the state government will commemce the implementation of the re-modelled education system which entails theoretical academic activities ending on Thursday, while Fridays will now be for Skills Acquisition.
The purpose for the Fridays being set aside for skills acquisition is to train the students early enough on how to be self reliant, creating jobs for themselves to reduce dependence on non-existing white collar jobs after graduation.
Meanwhile, the Niger state government has approved immediate recruitment 1, 000 health workers and automatic replacement of all retired health workers at the local and state levels to fill noticeable deficits across all health facilities.
Commissioner for Basic Health, Dr, Ibrahim Dangana, made this known during the post-exco press briefing. He said the decision is in line with the objectives of the Governor Mohammed Umar Bago led administration to ensure provision of accessible, qualitative and affordable health care services by Nigerlites.
The Commissioner who traced most of the challenges faced at the Basic health to shortage of manpower also assured of adequate provision of ante-natal care services, family planning as well as strengthening of referrals system across all the Primary Health Care (PHC) units.
Dangana also hinted that the sector have been restructured to ensure proper monitoring, channeled more to all the PHCs with the aim of correcting all forms of illegalities and misconceptions about the entire health sector to meet the health needs of the Niger people. NNL.
