Sokoto initiates bill for right to education, employs science teachers

Sokoto State Governor, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, has initiated the Right to Education Bill 2016, in recognition, and protection of right to education for children between six and 18 years in the state.

This is the first time any state in Nigeria will seek to legally make education a fundamental human right of all children.

The bill is one of the major components of the policy on the state of emergency in education declared in the state in December 2015.

“Sokoto will be the first state in Nigeria to provide right to education, thereby bringing it in comformity with the status of fundamental objective and directive principle of state policy under Chapter Two of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999,” according to Justice Commissioner Suleiman Usman.

Usman, who spoke while fielding questions from reporters in Sokoto, stressed that this step, would consolidate the declaration of emergency in education by the administration in concrete terms.

He described the bill as one of the major achievements of the Tambuwal administration, adding that in view of the high premium the administration has given to rural transformation and delivery of social services to the people especially at the grassroots, the Social and Community Development Agency Bill 2016, has also been initiated by the Executive, and is before the state House of Assembly.

“This Bill seeks to create a Social and Community Development Agency ‎for the execution of social and community development projects throughout Sokoto State,” he explained.

In a related development, Tambuwal has approved the recruitment of 96 new science and technology teachers 20 lawyers to serve as counsels in the state’s ministries of science and technology and justice respectively.