Chairman, Kano State Universal Basic Education Board, SUBEB, Danlami Hayyo has on Thursday opened up on why the state is yet to re-open schools in the state.

Hayyo said the state’s high number of enrolment makes it highly imperative for the government to ensure adequate measures and preparation are put in place in line with the COVID-19 guidelines of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, NCDC to safeguard the well being of the school children.

The SUBEB boss disclosed this during a two days training for 50 State School Improvement Team, SSIT for safe re-opening of schools organized by the board in collaboration with the Universal Basic Education Commission, UBEC.

He said the government places a high sense of concern on the safety of the children hence the decision of the government to disburse funds for the construction and renovation of classrooms to decongest the classrooms in compliance with the social distancing, and N70 million for the provision of Personal Protective Equipments, PPEs among others.

According to him, “Why we are yet to re-open the schools is because of the high number of children in the schools. We have to make sure we re-open in line with the guidelines of Covid-19.

“Kano State is the most populous state in the country and it means the enrollment in the state should be higher.

“Similarly, with the present policy of Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje of free and compulsory education, the enrollment increased to 3.8 meaning that there will be a higher number of children in the classroom. And that is the reason why the Governor has approved N20 million to each Local Government for the renovation of schools and N3.2 billion for construction and renovation of schools so that when we resume there will be the availability of more classrooms to re-open within the guidelines of Covid-19 (observe social distancing).

“Since you have a high number of children in the school, definitely you would have to increase the Infrastructures (construction of classrooms).

“So that is why we are yet to resume. But we are about to re-open because contractors are at the site, some have reached 50% to 70% of their work. Currently, training is going on for the SSIT who will go back to train others on safety measures towards the safe re-opening of the schools. We have also provided the Personal Protective Equipment, PPEs which will be distributed across schools in the 44 LGAs. So within short or, no distance time schools will resume in Kano,” Hayyo however stated.

In the meantime, the SSIT is expected to go back to their LGAs to step down the training to about 4,000.