By Patience Ogbodo,  Correspondent, Bauchi

Bauchi State  Commissioner for Education, Alhaji Mohammed Aminu Ibrahim, says the education subsector in the  state has been getting the required 26 percent budgetary allocations under the administration of Governor Isa Yuguda.

Ibrahim stated this  when he received delegation from  the Centre for information Technology and Development (CITAD) during an advocacy visit in his office.                                           He said, “Bauchi State Ministry of Education in terms of budgetary allocation has got more than 26%, previously we were getting up to 30% in budgetary allocations, which is still on course in keeping with the required world demand,” the commissioner said.

He explained that  as a result of the improved budgetary allocations the ministry has been able to improve the lots of the people.

The commissioner also unveiled a collaborative plan between the state government and the World Bank to introduce a number of policies into the education sub-sector for which only three states in the federation namely Bauchi, Anambra, and Ekiti are found suitable for the programme.

“We are also working tirelessly to improve the strength and capacity of parents/teachers associations at the school level whereby the parents, teachers, and civil society organizations could be part of it”, he stated.

He  said the Ministry would soon introduce the School Management Committees whereby teaching will be step down to school level where parents, teachers, communities, civil society organizations, women groups would be involve in the management of resources at the school level.

He noted that it was not the first time the Ministry is collaborating with CITAD, stressing the need for more areas of cooperation with it especially in the area of capacity building and training for teachers with the approval of the 2013 budget.

Ibrahim advised CITAD to meet with the people at the Due Process Office where, he explained, a lot of changes have been going there for up-date on the happenings, stating also that all top government officials have attended one form of training or workshop on fiscal responsibility and procurement laws of the state.

Speaking earlier, CITAD Senior Program Officer, Kabir Sa’idu Dakata they were on advocacy visit to the ministry with members of the Bauchi State Coalition for Improvement of Public Expenditure Management (BACIPEM).

Dakata explained that the visit is to brief the Ministry on the activities of the Coalition, suggest on how to improve on implementation of public procurement and fiscal responsibility laws of the state, and present copies of the Coalition Charter.

He  also expressed CITAD’s willingness as an ICT based organization to partner with the Ministry in building the capacity of secondary school teachers on ICT, especially on current challenges such as training of examination officers on online registration and related matters.