First, the bad news: Plateau State school infrastructure has been decaying for two and a half decades without any form of rehabilitation. This much was revealed by the state Deputy Governor Professor Sunny Tyoden after an inspection.

Yet, it was not all bad news. Tyoden also lifted the spirits of the state residents. Things will change, he told reporters.

“The standard of education in the state has not improved from what it was 25 years ago,” said the deputy governor who doubles as Commissioner for Higher Education.

He said, “The state government, not satisfied with a report of the Transition Committee, also decided to embark on a tour which I undertook to see things myself and I came face to face with the reality of things in our schools.

“To put it straight, our schools are in the state of total decay, the level of infrastructural decay is really disturbing; you would find out that in some of the institutions visited there is no additional value added to the schools in terms of infrastructure and manpower since their establishment 25 years ago.

“Every system moves in line with the global standard; if you look at it carefully you will discover that education is moving in the direction of skilled economic base. But in our society we have relegated the position of knowledge and skills.

“Government is so sad and concerned over this because in recent past, Plateau State was rated second best in the entire Northern Nigeria, but today Plateau State is rated second to the last in SSCE results.”

But the deputy governor added, “Our government is on a rescue mission; we are going to give the education sector top priority, that was why on assumption of office   government released funds to rescue its university which was in total mess. Our university could not graduate their students 10 years after it commenced admission because their courses were not accredited due to poor lack of necessary facilities.

“It will amaze anyone to discover that the state university had four vice chancellors in its 10 years of existence, there was no stability until we came in, that was why we brought somebody like Prof Attahiru Jega to head the council to stabilise the school.

“We have been able to provide basic facilities and the NUC has recommended for the accreditation of the university. We shall give same prompt attention to our secondary and primary schools and we have already made provisions for that in our 2016 budget.

“Apart from facilities, all our schools lack relevant teachers and  they have not recruited staff since the last 10 years. We are currently taking an inventory of the staff deficit across the state with hope of injecting required manpower who will engender quality in our academic programmes.”

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Education in Plateau is 25 years behind other states