We allowed public education to collapse, and both past military and civilian governments share the blame for not investing adequately in this sector. We are determined in Kaduna, no matter the cost or the price, to restore what is good in public education. ~ Gov Nasir @elrufai 
It’s striking to me that, United States of America, one of the most capitalist countries in the world, has no private primary schools. This makes us more determined to restore the quality of primary education in Kaduna. ~ Gov Nasir @elrufai
Trade unions & political leaders criticized us when we sacked “so called teachers” & said we were creating unemployment not minding the fact that we are creating future security and developmental progress. There’s a difference between knowing how to read/write, & being a teacher.
Investing in education is a long term investment for a politician subject to a 4 year cycle of elections. To a core politician, it doesn’t pay to invest in education because the results comes after at least, 30years. ~ Gov Nasir @elrufai
For a politician, it is easier and better to build roads or hand out cash to noisy politicians so they don’t abuse you rather than doing what is more important, which is investing in education. ~ Gov Nasir @elrufai
We did a poll in Kaduna as to what people perceive as most important dividend of democracy, and shockingly, education was 4th. Roads was 1st, water was 2nd, electricity was 3rd, and health was 5th. ~ Gov Nasir @elrufai
Perception of people is the exact opposite of what is more important. Leaders must take action and do what is important in the long run even if ordinary people do not understand that, it is more important for them. ~ Gov Nasir @elrufai
In Kaduna, we are more determined in executing what is useful in the long run rather than what is expedient. For school renovations, we have about 4,256 primary schools and about 450 secondary schools which we are renovating in phases because we are broke. ~ Gov Nasir @elrufai
We are going to redistribute teachers in Kaduna. For example, there are 168 pupils to 1 teacher in Igabi local government while you have 1 teacher to 9 pupils in Kaura local government. Our target is to have 40 pupils to 1 teacher in a classroom. ~ Gov Nasir @elrufai
We’ve been told that if we go ahead and implement our education reforms, we would lose the forthcoming elections. But to us, securing the future of our children/grandchildren and preventing Boko Haram 2.0 is worth losing the elections for.
Our education policy in Kaduna has 10 components. It is absolutely free, compulsory and basic for 9 years. We also want to ensure that all our schools have infrastructure, tools and equipments for the teachers to function. ~ Gov Nasir @elrufai
We are determined to ensure that our teachers are of the best quality. We want to attract only the best and brightest people to teach. Back in the days in Northern Nigeria, only the best people were asked to be teachers as you need the best people to bring up the best children.
Our state government has decided that urban teachers will be paid twenty seven and half percent higher than average civil servants while rural teachers will be paid thirty two and half percent higher to attract the best. ~ Governor Nasir @elrufai
We are doing our best to restore the integrity of the teaching profession. We have finished tests for primary school teachers and we are going to administer competency tests for secondary school teachers. ~ Gov Nasir @elrufai
In education, Kaduna is number 1 in Northern Nigeria and number 12 in Nigeria. We are not satisfied as we are determined to be one of the top three in the whole of Nigeria. ~ Gov Nasir @elrufai
For secondary schools in Kaduna, we want to make all our senior secondary schools boarding, starting with the legacy schools. This we believe will foster unity. We are also redesigning the tertiary institution system in the state. ~ Gov Nasir @elrufai
We are going to redesign the legislation for Kaduna State University so it becomes a multi campus university. The vision is for it to be like the University of California where campuses operate as colleges then over time, operate like stand alone universities. ~ Gov @elrufai
We have redesigned the scholarship system in Kaduna. What we inherited was a system that paid students from Kaduna in tertiary institutions 10-15K as scholarship. They called it scholarship but we call it 419 as 15K isn’t enough to cover a student’s transportation per annum.
Scholarship in Kaduna is now merit and need based, specifically for poor families and for certain courses. We won’t award scholarships to go study courses that already have thousands of unemployed graduates. ~ Gov Nasir @elrufai
We are collaborating with banks to create a student loan scheme, so that on gaining admission, you can get a loan from the bank, subsidized by the state government, which you will pay back when you graduate and get a job. ~ Gov Nasir @elrufai
Lastly, we’ve been told that the reforms we are implementing won’t be sustainable, because when we leave office, things will go back to what they used to be. We hope not! While we are here, we will do what we can. Continuation of our reforms is left for the electorates to decide.
