From Dan Amasingha, Minna and Joseph Amedu, Lokoja

The Niger State government is set to establish a University of Agriculture and Climate Change alongside a College of Education.This followed a bill passed by the Niger State House of Assembly on Wednesday. While the proposed university will run degree programmes, the College of Education will run National Certificate of Education (NCE) and Bachelor of Education (B.

Ed. ) programmes.While the College of Education will be sited in Minna, the state capital, the university, to be named after a former military head of state, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, will be sited in Mokwa.According to the leadership of the state assembly, the proposed state owned university would be self-financing while the College of Education would be funded by the state government.In a related development, the Kogi State Government has concluded plans to set up an Education Monitoring Team in all the 21 Local Government Areas of the State.The State Commissioner for Education Hon. Wemi Jones disclosed this at a stakeholders meeting for the reformation of Kogi Education Task Force.According to Jones, the 11-member task force would be drawn from NUT, ASUSS, ES, AEE’s, NAPPS, AMIS, religious and traditional institutions, PTA, Youth Organisations amongst others, across the local government levels in the stateHe said that the task force would be empowered to monitor, inspect and evaluate primary and secondary schools in the state to ensure full implementation of government education policies and programmes.The commissioner appealed to the stakeholders to work with the ministry to restore the lost glory of education.He stressed that the government alone can’t address the challenges in education, emphasising that only team work can produce greater results.He emphasised that education was not all about spending money, but proper planning and execution of government policies and programmes.The commissioner noted that the state government has made huge investment in education and would not allow the investment to go to waste.He said successive governments in Kogi State since 2016, have been able to plan well for the overall development of education in the State.As a government, we will like to know if teachers are teaching according to the curriculum, and also to get feedback on the schools’ challenges”, he said.In his remarks, the Chairman Forum of Education Secretaries, Kogi Local Government Education Secretary, Salihu Adamu Usman, commended the state government for prioritising education.Usman promised that the Forum would continue to do its best in implementing government policies and programmes in education in the stateThe meeting was attended by the Education Secretaries from the 21 local government areas and zonal directors of education.