By FRED ITUA 

The Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) has rolled out fresh strategies geared towards ensuring that education remains on a sure footing, even in the face of economic recession.

In particular, to ensure quality control of infrastructure and manpower in the FCT  school system, the FCT minister, Muhammad Bello, has approved the accreditation of about 115 private schools in the territory, while 117 private and public schools were screened for the 2017 accreditation exercise.

Also, due to the influx of people into the FCT, which has continued to stretch infrastructure in various schools within the territory, the FCTA has established four new secondary schools to cater for the educational needs of about 5,000 students.

Reeling out these measures,  the Acting Director,  FCT Education Secretariat, Mrs. Justina Maimagani, disclosed  that  the FCT minister has already granted approval for five new senior secondary schools, scheduled to take off in September this year.

She stated that the FCT Education Resource Centre carried out a capacity building training programme for 565 senior secondary schools’ mathematics and English language teachers across the FCT.

Related News

 She added that  additional 4,801 teachers received into the FCT Universal Basic Education Board (UBEB), from the federal government’s N-Power scheme, with 2,569 posted to primary schools  while 2,232 were posted to junior secondary schools, to help bridge the gap in basic education teaching staff.

She spoke  at a mid-term media briefing to appraise the challenges and achievements of the FCTA in the education sector in the last two years.

The director disclosed that, in the course of entrenching the quality control mechanism, school inspectors discovered about 264 teachers across public and private schools in the FCT that had varying teaching shortcomings.

 According to her, such teachers were recommended for retraining and sent to the Teacher Development Division of the Education Resource Centre for further training.

Similarly, to further tackle proliferation of substandard and illegal schools within the FCT, the Director, Department of Quality Control in the Secretariat, Mr. Ayuba Didam, stressed that the measures were taken to shut down about 556 illegal schools in the FCT sometime last year.

 Didam noted that, although there is no extant legal framework to punish those who establish illegal schools, the FCTA would go after such people and continue to shut down such schools.