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Hon. Jigem. J, Commissioner of Education
Taraba state indigenes in tertiary institutions across the country would soon begin to benefit from bursary as a committee has already been set up to get statistics of Taraba students across the country and the financial implication.
This was disclosed to our reporter by The State Commissioner of Education, Johannes Jigem, during an exclusive interview in Jalingo Wednesday.
Jigem, who used the opportunity to list the achievements of the present administration in the education sector, also disclosed that medical students of Taraba origin were being paid monthly allowance already.
He said,
“The National Union of Taraba State Students (NUTASS) and S.A Student Affairs, would go round all the universities in Nigeria and get us the statistics. Before you talk of bursary, you must know the number of students and the financial implication; we are still waiting for it. If the financial implication is within the threshold of the governor, fine and good. If it is above our threshold, we would take it to the State Assembly for virement”, he hinted.
When asked why a student body would be given the responsibility of doing the work as against the State Scholarship Board, Jigem stated that the decision to use the student body was to carry everyone along and erase any doubts on the intention of government.
According to the Commissioner, the State had already paid over N2Billion as UBEC Counterpart Fund which was duly acknowledged by the commission and was awaiting the Federal Government to pay its own share so that projects could begin in the State.
He added that his Ministry had set up a committee to clampdown on unlicensed private schools in the State.
“I have directed the permanent secretary to constitute a committee to go round all the private schools in the State; those that have met our standards should be properly registered and those that have not met our standards should be closed. As schools resume, we hope the committee would go into action”, he pointed.
