By Demola Akinyemi Ilorin When Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq of Kwara state assumed office in May 2019, available records showed that the Kwara State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) had been crippled by infrastructural decay, corruption, and irregular recruitment. Before the current administration came on board, UBEC had blacklisted Kwara and banned the state from accessing education grants from 2014 to 2018 over allegation that the state accessed a ₦1.5 billion UBEC grant in 2013 but that the funds were diverted instead of being used for school infrastructure. Several pupils in public schools particularly in remote communities were learning under the trees when community interventions failed. One of such was Aho community in Asa Local Government Area of the state. A community leader in the Aho community, Jimoh Zakariyahu in a viral video recalled how several community interventions failed and resulted in pupils learning under the trees. But the administration of Governor AbdulRazaq has now changed the fortunes of the community by constructing classrooms with standard benches and tables in addition to electricity after accessing over ₦7 billion matching grants to commence the revitalisation of basic education in the state Having received the grant, Governor AbdulRazaq embarked on a wide-scale classroom renovations across all 193 local government wards in the state in a bid to rescue the abandoned primary schools. Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq’s regular payment of the UBEC/SUBEB counterpart funds further resulted in the renovation of over 600 public schools, construction of digital literacy centres, the distribution of free instructional materials and improved learning environments across all 16 local government areas. It also procured and distributed millions of naira worth of textbooks, sports kits, and learning aids to public schools The governor further recruited 8,112 staff, comprising 7,801 classroom teachers and 311 non-teaching support staff even as he spent N5.5bn to offset the arrears of salary for SUBEB teachers, and local government workers in the state. Other achievements in KWSUBEB include: ●Construction of 308 two blocks of classrooms ●Construction of 76 three blocks of classrooms ●Construction of 62 four blocks of classrooms ●Rehabilitation/Remodeling of 2,784 classrooms ●Construction of perimeter fence with gate house in 75 Schools ●Provision of 54,433 Pupil/Students Furniture ●Provision of 7 954 Teachers Furniture Today, there is significant improvement in teaching and learning of Basic Education in the state under the Kwara State Universal Basic Education Board (KWSUBEB) led by Professor Shehu Raheem Adaramaja as the Executive Chairman. Training In the area of training, the capacity of Project officers were improved to further enhance their productivity. *238 Quality Assurance Officers were given requisite training to improve their productivity and performance in the schools as well as what is called state initiative training on capacity building of 300 teachers on vocational skills. *Training of 2,480 teachers on schools based programmes for effective classroom management *Training of 1,331 head teachers on the roles of an effective head teacher leadership. *Training of 12,625 Jolly Phonics teachers on identifying the skills on how to read and write. *State initiative training on capacity building of 300 teachers on Vocational skills. *Professional training for improvement on monitoring and support for 121 School Support Officers Distributed instructional materials for public schools *Forty (40) nos electronic gadgets for project officers *Forty (40) nos laptops for the project officers *Forty (40) nos electronic gadgets for Quality Assurance Department *Sixteen (16) nos laptops and 16 printers across LGEAs *ECCDE Chairs 13,000 *Generating sets – 2 Nos *Children playing equipment 16 (Nos) for (ECCDE) *Science and Lab equipment 17 Nos *Distribution of Agricultural Foods, Domestic Animals and Fertilizers (i.e Rice, Maize, Poultry farm and other Fertilizers) for School Farming Policies and other interventions *To further improve the pupils capacity, the state government introduced weekly debate among public schools across the 16 Local Government Areas in the State. *Kwara State improved student performance through foundational teaching reforms, digital learning integration, merit-based teacher recruitment, and infrastructure upgrades. “These systemic changes helped public school pupils excel in national exams and win international competitions like the Junior Secondary School Debate Championship in Malaysia. *Core Educational Policies and ReformsKwaraLEARN was launched to boost basic literacy and numeracy by providing
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