By Godfrey AKON
Katsina State Governor, Dikko Radda, has decried the threat of insecurity to schools across the state and solicited support from the Tertiary Education Trust Fund, TETFund, to enable the state tackle the menace.
Radda, who spoke in Abuja when he led a delegation on a working visit to TETFund, on Monday, said the fund’s intervention would provide for the needed infrastructure for the safety of the students.
The governor lamented that a lot of students had been kidnapped hence the need for the support to enable the state provide adequate infrastructure for students to learn.
“We are having threat of insecurity and a lot of students have been kidnapped, so we need a lot of security in the institutions to make students learn in a conducive environment.
“The states are struggling, the country is struggling in terms of economic hardship, depreciation of naira, high food stuffs, effect on removal of subsidy.
“The northern parts are struggling with insecurity. The resources we receive will not be adequate to address the challenges in the state so TETFund is a place we can come to for support,” he said.
He disclosed that the state is in the process of converting its ICT institution to a university of technology
On his part, the Executive Secretary, TETFund, Sonny Echono, explained that insecurity was a national issue affecting not only education but promised that the necessary infrastructure would be put in place to address them.
Echono said that the fund had prioritised all the trouble spots with measures in place to address the issues.
“We have seven to eight institutions in the state benefiting from TETFund. Katsina is in the eyes of problems of insecurity.
“We had already priortised Katsina in our security intervention because President Bola Tinubu is determined that in times of crisis, education must not stop.
“The president has said that we must bring those out of school back to school, expand existing programmes and more significantly is expanding access in leveraging technology and providing for indigent students.
“We have priortise all the trouble spots with multiplicity of measures. We are ensuring there is power in all our institutions, put in place communication gadgets and the rest. All of these are part of security infrastructure that is being implemented,” he said.
