Kaduna State Governor, Nasir el-Rufai, has punctured the preferences that the Nigerian syatem always give to the North when it comes to educational development.
He said the quota-based gestures had not helped the North, but had rather made it lazy.
He called for the stoppage of such on Monday, when he spoke on a ‘Channels Television” programme.
El-Rufai said the best was to make the system generally competitive so that every zone would rise and give the best.
He noted, “The north has always been behind in education, we’ve continuously been the disadvantaged region right from independence even though we’re given preferences, JAMB scores and all that. That has not helped, in fact, it has made our people lazy.
“Against this differential JAMB and FG (Federal Government) scores, I think people should be encouraged to work hard and compete and we are prepared to make our children in Kaduna State to be competitive, not only in the state but globally.
“The schools are closed now because, on the advice of security agencies, they need a couple of months to undertake massive security operations. They are doing that. We are confident that from the next two weeks, we would start the gradual reopening of schools.
“We have moved many of our students in rural areas that we are not sure we can protect to urban schools, thereby increasing the congestion in urban schools that we can protect.”
“The continuous closure of schools is exactly what bandits and Boko Haram want and we are not going to let them win but we must put the safety of our children and teachers first,” the governor noted, adding that the gradual reopening of schools would commence soon.”
The North, in spite of the abundance of natural resources, has always been treated as being disadvantaged in some critical areas.
This include economy, as it is regarded as only being advanced politically.
