Fidelis Soriwei

The Governor of Bayelsa State, Henry Seriake Dickson, has not left anybody in doubt about the determination of his Restoration Government to tackle decisively the challenge of education in the state. And he has opted to take on the seemingly daunting challenge of illiteracy with sustained efforts anchored on innovation. Right from the inception of his Restoration Government in 2012, Dickson highlighted the pertinence of education to the realization of a developed Bayelsa State. This quest to exploit the tool of education as the lasting parapet for societal development made Dickson to declare emergency in the education sector of the state.

Since Dickson mounted the podium to make that defining declaration to embark on intensified deliberate measures to promote education in 2012, so much progress has been made in the sector. A leader with a burning passion for the development of the human mind, Dickson devoted a chunk of available resources in the state to the provision of access to quality education. Like the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Dickson holds the view that no investment would be too great for the desired promotion of learning and its culture in Bayelsa.
At the level of lower education, the primary and secondary schools, Dickson introduced free education across Bayelsa. Under his watch, it became a matter of policy for every Bayelsa child to be in school. He had insisted on several fora that the greatness and indeed future of the young state was dependent on its younger generation whose intellectual capacity should be sharpened to steer the state to greater heights. To ensure that education was not only free and compulsory but also qualitative, Dickson committed over N70 billion to the building of new schools and the renovation of existing ones.

The administration has built and renovated over 600 schools in Bayelsa to keep the children off the streets. Dickson took further steps to explore other areas of access to education at the secondary school levels with the introduction of free quality boarding secondary schools in the state. On different visits, Nigeria’s first Professor of English, and renowned poet, Prof. JP Clark, Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, former Head of State, Gen. Yakubu Gowon and a former President Olusegun Obasanjo had heaped commendations on the government for the establishment of the flagship boarding School, the Ijaw National Academy, a wonder, symbolically located at Kaiama, the home town of the Ijaw freedom Icon, Jasper Isaac Adaka Boro.

This governor’s voracious appetite for educational development was anchored on the unflinching conviction that a society which fails to invest in education would be left with no other option than to commit public funds to the construction of prison walls and cemeteries. “There are only two options; its either we invest massively in education and encourage skills development or we build more prisons and more cemeteries because people are going to get killed.” To him, the second choice was no option. He holds tenaciously to the view that education remains the magical furnace with the incredible capacity to convert rust into diamond. That, no doubt, is the reason Bayelsa has over 7000 boarding students who are in about 25 model schools across the country.

It is not hidden that Dickson’s vision for development in Bayelsa draws its strength from the soothing breath of education. Although the administration’s sustained efforts for educational development have yielded some result and drawn commendation at the national level, the Education flame is burning with higher intensity. It is pertinent to note that Bayelsa which was listed the 28th in the education development index for the 36 states at the inception of the Dickson administration has appreciated with speed to the third and fifth positions respectively in NECO and WAEC examinations.

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But Dickson’s plan for education is as thorough as it is all encompassing. He has other plans for the education revolution in Bayelsa. He is preoccupied with the provision of unrestricted access to tertiary education as the logical measure to complement the feats recorded at the primary and secondary school levels. As a grassroots politician who answers to his chosen title, the ‘countriman’, Dickson is abreast of the challenges of getting university education in his state. Bayelsa, under Dickson, is boldly exploring avenues of access to tertiary education which are a novelty in this part of the world. Already the Bill establishing the Bayelsa State TertiaryEducation Board has been signed into law.

On Saturday April 21, 2018, Dickson told a massive audience of Bayelsans and invited dignitaries at the maiden matriculation òf the University òf Africa, Toru Orua, an institution he established, that the board would be inaugurated not later than weeks. One thing is unique about this idea. It is the badly needed panacea to problems of bright minds dropping out of schools because of lack of funds. With this masterstroke, Dickson has createed a vista of hope to thousands of Bayelsa youths whose academic programmes in tertiary institutions have been yoked to uncertainties.

“We have also taken care of the issue of access in another way that I have not heard done in any state in this country. Your government has also signed the Bayelsa State Student Tertiary Education Loan Board Law. I have signed that bill into law, and in the next one or two weeks I will be setting up that board. And just as we dedicated 5% of the internally generated revenue of our state to the Education Development Trust Fund, the Government of Bayelsa State will also every month, allocate some amount of money that I will announce shortly to the funding of the Student Loan Board. The whole idea is that we don’t want any Bayelsa youth, boy or girl, whatever your background may be, whatever your circumstances in life maybe, (once you have the basic qualifications that will enable you gain admission into university, either in the UAT or in our state-owned premier Niger Delta University or any other university in Nigeria) to be left behind.

“As a responsible government, because we know all fingers are not equal and we do not want any child to be left behind, we are establishing the Students Loan Board. The loan that the board will give will be paid directly to the universities. The board will formulate its rules and the board will pay for the university education cost particularly with regard to tuition fees. I expect the university to cooperate with the board so that when the students graduate, when they begin to work, they can repay within 10 to 20 years without feeling it. That is the standard across the world.”

Soriwei is Special Adviser on Media Relations to the
Governor of Bayelsa State