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From Scholastica Hir, Makurdi
Benue State Government has concluded plans to establish 15 pilot Smart schools and 11 technical colleges across the state.
Commissioner for Education and Knowledge Management, Rev. Frederick Ikyaan, disclosed this while speaking to newsmen in his office in Makurdi.
Ikyaan, who lamented the level of infrastructural decay in most public schools in the state, said the government wants to build standard model schools to serve as a reference for others to follow.
He said the state government under the leadership of Governor Hyacinth Alia was committed to skills acquisition, which is why she wants to establish 11 technical colleges in the 11 federal constituencies of the state.
The Commissioner, while stressing the need for technical and vocational education, announced the relocation of Benue State University Technical School to give it more visibility for greater impact.
While giving insight on the issue of school census, the commissioner stated that the computerisation of data would help the government to know the exact number of schools, students and teachers and also eliminate falsification of age and other records.
The commissioner said the free registration of WAEC, NECO and NABTEB was from the Federal Government’s palliative, which has not come again and so the government cannot continue with the gesture due to lack of resources.
On the security situation in the state, the commissioner said the government was committed to the security and safety of learners and has keyed into the safe school model in collaboration with the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) with the building of Rapid Response Centre, which is over 70 percent completed.
He maintained that training and retraining of teachers had been prioritised in various areas, including security and artificial intelligence (AI), as well as information and communication technology (ICT), adding that Huawei was to establish an ICT academy in BSU, Makurdi, for proper training and certification.
According to him, the government is currently training 2000 teachers in both public and private schools across the state in artificial intelligence free of charge.
