Progress Diary: Gombe Education Revolution In Focus

In a state wherever challenges successful basal and secondary acquisition proceed to rise concerns, Gombe State stands retired arsenic a communicative of turnaround, resilience, and reform.

Since Governor Muhammadu Inuwa Yahaya took bureau successful 2019, the acquisition assemblage has undergone a quiescent but profound transformation, 1 that deserves some designation and reflection.

The conception of the Gombe State Progress Diary is simply a deliberate, data-driven communicative alteration tool, a effect to the request for transparency, continuity, and nationalist consciousness connected the strides made nether the existent administration.

While the Greater Gombe Scorecard captured the milestones of Governor Inuwa Yahaya’s archetypal term, this diary builds connected that instauration by documenting the ongoing advancement crossed sectors, with this variation focusing connected the acquisition sector.

When Gombe State began its concern with the Federal Government and the World Bank nether the Better Education Service Delivery for All (BESDA) initiative, the outlook was grim. National surveys specified arsenic the 2019 Nigeria Education Data Survey (NEDS) estimated 450,000 out-of-school children (OOSC) successful the state. UNICEF’s projection was adjacent much alarming, astir 570,000.

In response, Gombe State launched an assertive run nether BESDA. Through a operation of ceremonial and non-formal acquisition strategies, the programme successfully reached and impacted astir 350,000 out-of-school children, rewriting what had erstwhile seemed a tragic inevitability. Over 640 Non-Formal Learning Centres, including Tsangaya schools and girl-child acquisition hubs were established crossed each 11 LGAs. MEGA Tsangaya schools besides sprang up, reinforcing government’s resoluteness to permission nary kid behind.

In 2019, lone 22% of Gombe students obtained 5 O’Level credits, including Mathematics and English, the basal threshold for tertiary acquisition admission. By 2023, that fig had surged to implicit 70%, a singular leap that opened doors for thousands of young Gombe indigenes.

This betterment did not hap by chance. Government-supported interventions, including outgo of WAEC and NECO fees and the voluntary organisation of JAMB forms, ensured that students from low-income backgrounds had equitable entree to these exams.

Infrastructure remains the backbone of immoderate learning system. Between 2019 and 2025, Gombe State constructed 201 blocks comprising 714 caller classrooms, renovated 338 blocks with 811 classrooms, built and upgraded MEGA schools crossed each senatorial zones

Within the period,  the authorities besides renovated hostels and administrative blocks, built and furnished accommodation for NYSC teachers successful MEGA schools.

In 2022, the authorities besides recruited 1,000 caller postgraduate teachers to fortify secondary education, with plans to widen this effort to superior schools. This attack ensures a accordant pipeline of qualified teachers, replacing those mislaid to retirement, resignation, oregon death.

Gombe State’s inclusion successful the World Bank-supported Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment (AGILE) marks different turning point. AGILE aims to span sex gaps successful education, peculiarly for girls aged 10–20. It focuses connected 3 captious pillars, including creating safe, inclusive learning spaces; providing WASH and recreational facilities and trengthening task systems for sustainability.

Already, 537 schools person been marked for renovation and 26 caller ones slated for construction. Over 12,000 girls person been identified for Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) support, with disbursements acceptable to begin.

Beyond brick-and-mortar developments and argumentation reform, what sets the Inuwa Yahaya medication isolated is its committedness to documentation and accountability. In a governmental clime often plagued by misinformation and abbreviated memories, Gombe Progress Diary volition basal arsenic a notation point, an evidence-based reply to questions of impact, legacy, and integrity.

Plans are underway to nutrient a second-term broad scorecard, overmuch similar the Greater Gombe document, capturing the afloat scope of projects and reforms betwixt 2023 and 2027. This volition service not lone arsenic an administrative grounds but besides arsenic a instrumentality for inter-governmental continuity and humanities preservation.

As critics rise questions oregon dispersed unfounded narratives, Gombe State is responding with facts. With classrooms rebuilt, teachers recruited, girls empowered, and tens of thousands of children backmost successful school, the numbers are hard to ignore.

In Gombe, information speaks, advancement counts, and acquisition leads.

– Arzoo is SSA Media to the Governor