Yobe To Power Public Schools By Solar Energy

By Suleiman Anyalewchi

The Yobe State Government, on Monday November 11, 2024 announced plans to power all public secondary schools in the State through Solar Energy.

This is just as it said plans are ongoing to rejig the fortunes of public schools by rehabilitaing and re-equiping existing institutions

On an inspection tour of some public schools in parts of the State, Secretary to the State Government SSG, Baba Malam-Wali informed that the State ,will be jettisoning the use of fossil fuel in the powering of its public institutions particularly schools, in the next fiscal year.

He stated that the proposal has been adequately captured in the 2025 appropriation bill soon to be sent to the House of Assembly for approval.

The Source reports that Yobe, alongside States of the North East Region, including Bauchi, has been battling with epileptic power supply for a long time now, a development which has severely impacted on the economic growth of the state and Region.

Only recently, States of the North West, were hit by several days of power outage, resulting from the alleged vandalization of Shiroro-Kaduna power transmission line.

The incessant drop in power supply has forced many States in the North East and North West into mulling alternative source of power supply.

Malam-Wali who spoke with the Media during the tour that saw him visit Government Higher Islamic College Nguru, Government Day Secondary school Gashua, Nigeria Tulip International College, NTIC, Yobe Damturu Campus, and Government Girls Unity College also in Damturu, emphasized that the proposal is part of a wider plan aimed at improving the standard of education in the State.

Other measures to rejig the standard of education which he noted spanned from 2019, include the construction of several model schools for the purpose of easing over crowding in urban institutions.

According to the SSG, the State Government has in collaboration with traditional rulers and other community leaders been improving on the enrollment of pupils in schools, particularly, in the rural communities.

Part of the efforts to reposition the education,he noted,  also include the payment of WAEC and NECO examination fees for the State’s candidates with a view to lessening financial burden on the parents.

Similarly, apart from establishing additional  secondary schools for girls, the State Government Malam-Wali, informed, has been relentless in the rehabilitation, and equipment of existing educational institutions in the last few years ..

The SSG stated that an audacious school feeding programme which will  cost the state about N500 million monthly is also   underway.