by Rachel Ogbu

The Borno State Commissioner for Basic Education, Tijjani Abba-Ali while presenting the mid term scorecard of Governor Kashim Shettima’s administration has revealed that 50 primary schools in total were burnt down by suspected Boko Haram insurgents in various parts of the state since they started attacks in the state.

Abba-Ali said that government had adopted measures to prevent future occurrences of the attacks by directing all the 27 Local Government Councils in the state to provide security for both students and teachers in schools.

“It was really sad that the hoodlums successfully attacked the schools killing innocent souls.

“This heartless and unjustifiable killing will not be allowed to continue because it will have a negative impact on the education sector of the state,” Abba said.

[READ: Terrible: Boko Haram kills 7 students, 2 teachers in Yobe ]

[READ: Horrific: Boko Haram kills 9 more students writing exams in Borno ]

The Vanguard reports:

Abba-Ali, who is also the chairman of the state Universal Basic Education Board, BUBEB, pointed out that the government had spent about N140 million on the repairs of the 50 primary schools burnt down by the suspected terrorists in both Northern and Central Senatorial zones of the state, just as it had also initiated partnership with communities and other stakeholders towards safeguarding school structures against such attacks.

The Commissioner who, lamented that 10 schools were initially burnt, but added that the number increased when the reconstruction of the 10 schools commenced.

He however, said that the Federal Government intervened by assisting the state government with   N120 million for the reconstruction of the 10 schools earlier burnt.

He stated that from 2008 to 2011, the state government settled all the outstanding counterpart funding to access about N3.4 billion which was used for the reconstruction, construction and procurement of furnitures to schools under the SUBEB scheme across the 27 local government areas of the state.

Giving further breakdown of the achievements recorded in the sector, the Commissioner said that, 85 schools were constructed through self- help in 2010, while 170 schools were built in 2011, stressing that such schools were selected across the three senatorial district of the state.

On  teachers welfare he said, government had promoted 13, 163 teachers across the state even as it had set up a committee with a view to settling gratuities of teachers who had either died or retired from service.

Furthermore, he said the state governments in conjunction with UNICEF trained 524 teachers and 41, 491 students on HIV awareness programme adding that 12 teachers were trained in India on the use of K-YAN machines in tandem with modern methods of teaching.