FCTA will maintain open door policy on education – Secretary
NAN-H-98
Education
By Kabir Muhammad
Abuja, Jan. 19, 2017 (NAN) The Acting Secretary, FCTA Education Secretariat, Alhaji Musa Maikasuwa says the secretariat will maintain an open door policy with local and international partners willing to assist in improving the education standard in FCT.
Maikasuwa said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Abuja.
According to him, collaboration with international agencies such as UNICEF, UNESCO, JICA and KOICA has not only been consistent but has improved over the years.
“A very significant achievement is the robust collaboration with the Korean International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) for the establishment of Nigeria/Korea Model School worth $15 million.
“This translates to over one billion naira ploughed into FCT education sector.
“Teachers for this school have been selected through rigorous process and some have even travelled to Korea for further training.
“On completion, this school has the potential of being one of the best schools in the country.
“It is a very major educational scoop for the FCT as it is coveted by many states across the country,’’ he said.
Maikasuwa noted that the UBE Board in collaboration with UNESCO and Procter & Gamble (P&G) had trained 5,000 “low performing girl-child’’ in the Public JSS in order to improve their performances thereby ensuring equitable access to quality education.
“The Chinese Government has a long history of collaborating with the FCTA for the delivery of quality education in the territory.
“In addition to the maintenance of Chinese Cultural and Friendship Centres in some of our schools, they also recently provided scholarship to 1000 indigent pupils to mark the 45th Nigeria/China relations.
“This is in addition to various training programmes that took place in China two of which included a Director of UBEB and a Fine Arts teacher, where Nigeria’s arts and crafts were exhibited,’’ he said.
The acting secretary said in collaboration with UNICEF, UBEB trained 126 ECC caregivers/teachers on a child centred approach to ECCD called Reggio Emilia Approach (42 each from Abaji, Kuje and Kwali LEA).
“US Embassy sponsored an officer from the Secondary Education Board to participate in the FY 2016 study of US for Secondary School Educators (Admin. Category) at California State University for three months,’’ he said.
He thanked the FCT Minister, Malam Muhammad Bello and the Permanent Secretary, Dr Babatope Ajakaiye for ensuring that the project commenced in 2016 and meeting FCTA obligations as contained in the MoU with KOICA. (NAN)
KM/AFA
Edited by Felix Ajide