Private primary and secondary schools in Katsina State remained closed yesterday, as their counterparts in other states of the federation resumed.
However, state government officials are yet to give definite date when the pupils will return to school.
But higher institutions of learning in the state opened their gates, with students seen moving from one department to another, while few lectures were held by some of the dons.
Schools across the country were closed last year due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), but were instructed to open yesterday by the Federal Government.
The situation in Katsina is peculiar due to the abduction of 344 students of Government Science Secondary School (GSSS) Kankara, on December 12, last year.
It was learnt that the abduction prompted a review of security measures around schools in the state to forestall recurrence.
The Commissioner for Education, Prof. Lawal Badamasi, was unavailable to respond to the issue at the time of this report. Also, several calls and messages to him were not responded to.
But top government officials, who volunteered information under condition of anonymity said government was not in a hurry to re-open schools in the state.
“The state is not in a hurry to re-open schools for now. In fact, it is only Governor Aminu Masari who can say categorically when schools will reopen,” one of the officials said. “What government is doing now is to ensure adequate security in all the schools before they resume. You know what happened last December at Kankara Government Science Secondary School. We don’t want a repeat of that.”
The Assistant Public Relations Officer in the state’s Ministry of Education, Sani Suleiman, referred all enquiries on the schools resumption to the commissioner.
