Who gains? Rural children in Adamawa, who will now have closer access to quality schooling. The North East Development Commission says its mega schools in Guyuk, Song and Mubi South are intended to close the education gap between children in remote communities and those in urban areas.
Adamawa State Coordinator Alhaji Khalifa Lawan told Arewa PUNCH that education is the fourth of the commission’s 11 development pillars, and that the projects form part of a recovery and renewal effort to rebuild school facilities destroyed or damaged by years of conflict in the North-East. The commission is constructing modern schools across the three senatorial districts with fully equipped classrooms, administrative offices, staff quarters, and independent utilities including solar power and boreholes.
The designs aim to reduce absenteeism by addressing the practical reasons teachers and pupils stay away from campus. Staff housing, reliable electricity, on-site clinics, water and other facilities are built into the campuses to make it easier for teachers to report to work and for students to remain enrolled. Lawan compared the quality of the campus hostels to those found in private universities and said both students and staff would have what they need on campus.
Lawan framed the programme as part of a wider push to give citizens the education needed to value and protect public investments. He argued that ignorance drives vandalism, citing the cutting down of poles for solar-powered streetlights as an example of how communities can undermine local security and commerce.
The commission located the mega schools in Guyuk in the Southern Senatorial District, Song in the Central Senatorial District, and Mubi South in the Northern Senatorial District because each is distant from Yola, the state capital. The NEDC says this placement sends a message that quality education is for all citizens and is taking deliberate steps to ensure poor children need not relocate to cities to access schooling.
Alongside construction, the coordinator urged community members to protect the new facilities in the interest of their children. The NEDC said it will continue to roll out modern school projects across the senatorial districts and called on residents where the schools have been built to safeguard them.
