Chairman, Kuje area council, Alhaji Abdullahi Danladi Galadima, has call on residents to be more committed to the pursuit of quality education.
He made the call in Kuje yesterday during a town hall meeting on sensitisation of FCT- residents to access National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN’s) academic programme.
The chairman said his administration had made education a top priority and had, therefore, donated books worth millions of naira, “placement of some indigents in universities, colleges of education, and strengthening capacity building under our jurisdiction.”
He said his administration’s desire “is to continue to partner with NOUN to ensure that the residents of Kuje attain standard literacy level that will bring about the needed development.”
The chairman thanked the HOD, Education and Social Development, Hajiya Ramat M. Gojara, the Supervisory Councillor for Education, Ahamed Adamu, and the Divisional Head, Education Services, Mrs. Margret Ogbu, for making the programme a success.
Also speaking, the Director, FCT Department of Higher Education, Mr. J. A. Garba, said part of the Department’s core mandate “is paving access to quality tertiary education for and by residents and indigenes of the FCT.”
According to him, it is also “to underscore the importance of this synergy towards concretising this subject matter (Advocacy and Sensitisation) which the FCT Permanent Secretary graciously approved the programme in September 2017.” “During our visit to the area councils, we were requested to get to grassroots, sensitise their indigenes, collate names, and submit to DHE for onward submission to NOUN. This resulted in Municipal, Kuje, Abaji and Gwagwalada area councils submitting 124, 84,25 and seven prospective candidates, respectively. In spite of several persuasions, Bwari and Kwali councils are yet to respond to this effect,” he said.
He added that “during our stakeholders’ meeting that took place in November 2017, a communiqué was signed that DHE will provide the platform, NOUN to provide resource persons while each area council will provide logistics.”
The director said arrangements for the take-off of the programme were “ripe in December 2017, when Abaji and Municipal area councils were ready, but the timing was inappropriate because the university was then into convocation and accreditation exercise.”
Earlier, in his address, the Vice Chancellor of NOUN, Prof. Abdulla Ula Adamu, represented by the Registrar of the University, Felix Idakwo Edoka, said “Kuje is one of the 774 local governments in Nigeria that will benefited for the NOUN programme.”
He called on the council chairman to create a budget to support the indigenes for the programme, even as commended him for hosting the programme.
