By Usman Usman Garba
Kano State Ministry of Education has embarked on a Media tour to strengthen cordial working relationships with media organizations across the state.
The State Commissioner of Education Alhaji Umar Haruna Doguwa alongside some staff of the ministry visited the management of some media stations to discuss issues regarding educational development and seek their support to address problems of education in Kano.
In his separate speech during the visit to Radio Kano, Nasara Radio and Freedom Radio, Umar Doguwa revealed that the stage at which the present administration of Alhaji Abba Kabir Yusuf found the education sector required urgent collaborative commitment with individuals, government and non-governmental organizations to address the educational challenges inherited.
Doguwa said the new government policy of declaring a state of emergency on education is one of the measures put in place by the administration to fully revitalise the sector.
The Commissioner further disclosed that the government had recently conducted the Kano International Conference on Education during which stakeholders converged and deliberated on the problems of education and the way forward.
Doguwa added that a lot of programmes and projects are currently being designed by the administration to uplift the standard of education in the state including renovation and construction of schools, provision of instructional materials, upgrading of school feeding programmes and teachers’ training among others.
He therefore tasked media practitioners across the state to offer their contributions by providing the needed publicity to the new government policies and programmes on education for the benefit of the teeming populace, stressing that the tour is designed to cover all the media outlets in the state.
“We are going to come up with a monthly press briefing and during this briefing, all the heads of our parastatals will be in attendance to tell the public about the achievements recorded in their offices and journalists will be free to ask or demand clarification on any issue being raised.
” I want to assure you that this government is very serious about education and will do everything possible to revive the lost glory of the sector,” he said.
He stressed that radio stations being one of the common and most patronized channels of communication, especially by people in rural areas, have crucial roles to play towards solving the challenges of the education sector.
In their separate remarks, the Managing Director of Radio Kano Comrade Abubakar Adamu Rano, the General Manager of Nasara Radio Comrade Isma’la Ammai Mai Zare and the Station Manager of Freedom Radio Ado Sa’idu Warawa pledged to give their maximum support to enlightening the public on programmes meant to improve quality of education in the state.
They specifically appreciated the new government policy of declaring a state of emergency on education which according to them, demands the support and cooperation of everyone to ensure the success of the programme.
The Station Manager of Freedom Radio Ado Sa’idu Warawa noted that the recent allocation of 29.97% of this year’s budget to the education sector signified how serious the government became about fixing problems of education in Kano.