Education is both the act of teaching knowledge to others and the act of receiving knowledge from someone else. Education also refers to the knowledge received through schooling or instruction and to the institution of teaching as a whole.
Education is further described as a systematic process through which a child or an adult acquires knowledge, experience, skill and sound attitude. It makes an individual civilized, refined, cultured and educated. For a civilized and socialized society, education is the only means. Its goal is to make an individual perfect.
Going by the foregoing, the importance of education in any community cannot be overemphasized because the lack of it promotes illiteracy and backwardness as people may find it pretty difficult to understand the happenings around them.
Gifted Secondary School, Sade
According to the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), there are 20 million out-of-school children in Nigeria, out of which 1.2 million are in Bauchi State.
The education system in Bauchi State has been grappling with serious challenges, as highlighted in a newspaper’s article . This report drew attention to issues such as teacher shortages, school closures, and students resorting to farming due to a lack of educational opportunities.
Despite the free education policy of the Bauchi State government, a good number of children still do not attend school. In fact, according to Bauchi State Annual School Census, (ASC), data for 2019–2020, a total of 1,031,524 children are out of school in the State.
Worried by the worsening situation, Bauchi State Government organized an education summit to map out ways to tackle the dwindling education standard and quality.
While declaring the Summit open, Governor Bala Mohammed said the Summi’s deliberations would dwell into multi-faceted issues including assessment and analysis of the state of the education in Bauchi state.
Pupils in the classroom
The Governor further explained that the summit would aim to convince stakeholders and development partners to collaborate with the government to address the challenges in the education sector of the state with a view to formulating formulate evidence-based policies to address them.
He said the summit would also dwell on resource mobilization, including exploring avenues to generate funding and creation of innovative education infrastructure through devising ways to have conducive learning environment.
The Governor also said that the summit would provide opportunity for excellent community engagement – both local and external by increasing awareness and mobilizing their support for targeted and specific interventions tailored to address Bauchi state unique education challenges.
It was this disturbing figures and call by the government that prompted the Member of the House of Representatives, Mansur Manu Soro, representing Darazo/Ganjuwa Federal Constituency of the state to embark on measures that will see to the promotion of education in the area and by extension, the entire state.
Mansur Manu Soro established Special Primary School, Lanzai which has a total No. of 10 Staff with Monthly Allowance of N94,000; Darazo West Gifted School, Sade which has 15 No. of Staff with monthly Allowances of N157,000; Darazo Central Gifted School, Darazo with 15 No. of Staff and N116, 000 as
Allowances; Ganjuwa East Gifted School, Soro with 17 No. of staff receiving monthly Allowances of the sum of N230,000 as well as Ganjuwa West Gifted School, Kafin Madaki which has a total No. of 14 staff who are collecting monthly Allowances of the sum of N149,000.
In Summary, the schools have a total of
71 employees who are receiving the sum of N746,600 as Allowances every month which when pulled together, amounts to the sum of N8,952,000 annually.
Aside from encouraging enrollment in Schools by complementing the efforts of the state government in that direction, the effort of the Federal Lawmaker is contributing to the reduction of unemployment in the state.
Gifted Secondary School, Darazo
Checks showed that the efforts is a personal drive and motivation of Mansur Manu Soro, not part of the constituency projects of Federal Constituency but rather his own way of giving back to the society that contributed to what he has become today.
Samaila Alhaji is the Headmaster of Special Primary School, Lanzai in Darazo LGA, he said that the School was established by Mansur Manu Soro and donated to the people of the community in 2022 with 141 pupils and Eight Teachers who are on the payroll of the Federal Lawmaker.
He also said that every Friday, all the pupils are being fed with variety of food freely from the grant made available to the School by the Member to the tune of N2m in 2023 while for 2024, it was more than N2m.
The Headmaster commemded the initiative by the Federal Lawmaker saying that all of the Pupils are not paying a single Kobo as fees but rather are receiving completely free education as uniforms, textbooks, sandals, socks and other things are provided for them.
Samaila Alhaji, HM of Special School, Lanzai
He added that the school was established primarily to take care of orphans, vulnerable children and those from IDPs camp as well as Almajiris who do not have access to attending formal schools.
Samaila Alhaji added that the Federal Lawmaker opened bank accounts for all the pupils and deposited the sum of N10000 each in the accounts for the upkeep of the children.
It is the same story at the Gifted School, Sade which is a Secondary school established by the Federal Lawmaker with the aim of providing quality secondary education to the teeming youths of the area.
The Principal of the School said that the students are not required to pay any amount of money as everything has been taken care of by the Federal Lawmaker including uniform, shoes, bags, books and other assesories required.
Chairman of the School Base Management Committee said that the establishment of the School by Mansur Manu Soro has impacted positively on secondary education in the area as parents are struggling to get spaces for their children considering the standard of teaching and learning in the school.
At the Gifted Secondary School, Darazo, the Principal said that the Students have continue to display high standards of learning based on the teaching methods by the teachers a development that has made the school, a preference for many parents in the community.
Salihu Idris is the Head Boy of the school and he commended the notion behind the establishment of the school by the Federal Lawmaker saying the Teachers are really doing their best to impact knowledge on them.
He said that the school has exposed them to a lot of improvements in the aspect of learning as they are not buying anything required for learning saying that school uniform, sandals, books and bags have been provided freely for them.
The Head Boy said that his ambition is to become an Engineer in life and expressed confidence that with what the Teachers are doing, the future is very bright for the students of the school.
Also, Rukkayat M. Lawal, the Head Girl of the school said that the Teachers of the school have built up their confidence especially in public speaking saying that before she joined the school, she was not fluent in speaking publicly.
All other students who spoke commended the Federal Lawmaker for establishing the School in Darazo saying that it had afforded the privilege of having secondary school education as most of them are from poor family background.
Principal of Gifted Secondary school, Darazo
The story is the same at both Ganjuwa East Gifted School, Soro as well as Ganjuwa West Gifted School, Kafin Madaki which are all taking care of gifted children from the areas in the efforts to provide quality secondary school education to the people.
Auwalu Sarki Shehu is the Sarkin Gabas of Soro, a traditional ruler in the community and while speaking on the various developmental projects of the Representative Mansur Manu Soro said that the community has greatly benefited from his efforts
According to him, the issue of the Gifted School has offered opportunities for the students to demonstrate their natural gift of learning saying that, “At first, people, especially opposition members did not believe until they saw how it is developing.”
According to him, “The school started with 50 students, it was very difficult to get the students because people did not believe it will work out. But now, people are lobbying to get their children admitted into the school.”
Auwalu Sarkin Gabas of Soro
He like many others who spoke on the initiative of the schools, commemded the Federal Lawmaker for the foresight of establishing the schools opining that had previous representatives done same thing, the Federal Constituency would have gone far in the area of education.
The traditional ruler added that as a community, they are doing everything possible to contribute to the sustainability of the school by seeking for avenues to support the running through meagre contributions by parents who are members of the PTA.
He however want Government to come in by taking over the schools so that by the time Mansur Manu Soro is no longer able to keep financing their operations, the schools will not close down.
Speaking on his inspiration for establishing the schools, Mansur Manu Soro said that, “To prepare our younger ones for the task of tomorrow’s leadership. For my Constituency to produce captains of Industries, Governors, Engineers among other leadership fields.”
Hon Mansur Manu Soro, Member, Darazo/Ganjuwa Federal Constituency
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