Zamfara State Governor, Dauda Lawal, expressed his concerns about the inadequate condition of the education sector in his state.
He made this observation while visiting the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) in Abuja.
In a statement released by TETFund on Saturday, it was reported that Governor Dauda sought the assistance of the Fund to revitalize the education sector, aiming to propel the state towards progress and development.
“As you are all aware, Zamfara is a small state facing the challenge of insecurity, most importantly in the area of education. If you check all the statistics, you will agree with me that Zamfara is not doing too well and therefore we need to be encouraged…
“It is a known fact that without education, we will not be able to achieve anything and we will continue to be backward,” the governor said.
Governor Lawal, who recently took office, stated that his campaign focused on improving security and education in the state. However, he acknowledged that he is facing challenges due to limited financial resources available to tackle these issues effectively.
Despite the constraints, he remains committed to finding solutions and making positive changes in these critical areas for the betterment of Zamfara State.
“Bearing in mind the financial resources of the state, I have a limitation, and this is the place the help will come from, ES (Executive Secretary) I am here, Zamfara needs help. I know you are doing very well but you can do better,” the governor said.
The governor praised TETFund for its various initiatives aimed at enhancing tertiary education institutions across the country.
In response, Sonny Echono, the head of TETFund, congratulated the governor on his victory in the March 18 governorship election. Echono expressed delight with the governor’s commitment to human capital development and acknowledged that Zamfara State is abundant in resources that could be harnessed for educational growth.
Regarding the governor’s request, the Executive Secretary assured that TETFund had already made provisions to address security issues affecting public tertiary educational institutions.
“The number of institutions in Zamfara, the number one challenge they face over the years, especially in the last few years is the issue of insecurity. We did made some plans for most of the institutions because this year under our intervention we made provision for security infrastructure.
“We have harnessed the requests from the institution’s, in fact, we started with one of them but we have about three that we believe we will be able to do something about in the next couple of weeks and we will be able to make allocations in that regard.
“We will also make other intervention based on the approved guidelines that we already have while those that will not come this year, we will prioritise them for next disbursement cycle,” Echono said.
