Education Trust Fund hits N800m in Bayelsa

 

The Bayelsa State Education Trust Fund (BSETF) has recorded N800m contributions from workers, government officials and other categories of persons within ten months.

The state Governor, Mr. Seriake Dickson, on March 31, 2017, signed the BSETF and the state Higher Education Student Loan bills passed by the state House of Assembly into law.

The BSETF makes it compulsory for different categories of workers including contractors and civil servants in the state to pay education levies.

Dickson inaugurated a board to administer the fund and appointed a famous educationist, Prof. Turner Isoun, as its Chairman.

Isoun on Wednesday, while submitting the 2017 Annual Report of the fund to the governor in Government House, Yenagoa, said between March and December, the trust fund received N800m from taxable stakeholders.

Out of the total receipt, he said N300m was expended leaving a balance of N500m.

Dickson urged the private sector, particularly corporate organisations and individuals to make contributions to the trust fund, to enable indigent children acquire free and qualitative education.

A statement signed by the Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, Mr. Francis Ottah Agbo, quoted Dickson as saying that the programme was targeted at delivering “the democratization of knowledge” in the state.

He called on the people of the state to take ownership of the education programme and explained that the Fund was aimed at strengthening education to increase the literacy level in the state.

Dickson commended the Chairman and members of the board for the prudent management of the funds.

He directed the board in collaboration with the Ministries of Information and Orientation as well as Education in creating the needed awareness for people to identity with the education policy.

He said: “I call on our people to own this programme, which is for your benefit. This programme is to deepen education and deliver what, I always call, the democratization of knowledge, where we are taking children from the underprivileged circumstances and backgrounds and putting them in boarding secondary schools and taking responsibility for their feeding, clothing books and everything.

“We are doing that now and the schools are in all the local government areas and we are still working on more. I call on the board to increase their enlightenment.

“I want to direct the Commissioner for Education and Ministry of Information also to jointly, working together with the board,  to increase the awareness on behalf of the people about the benefits of this programme and then, most importantly, about their duties.

“I also want to use this opportunity to call on the private sector, especially, the international oil companies that have been making billions of dollars on this soil without giving much back. I want to call for collaboration.

“I have mandated the chairman and the board to establish contacts with all local and international companies that are operating in this state to assess and impose a special levy.

“The law provides for the board to assess and levy individuals and leaders of this state irrespective of where they may reside. We expect the board to do more especially in the area of increasing their dragnet.”

Prof. Isoun also said that the fund would go a long way in addressing the challenges in the education sector and assist the people participate effectively in a knowledge-driven economy.

Also speaking, the Commissioner for Education, Mr. Jonathan Obuebite and his Information and Orientation counterpart, Mr. Daniel Iworiso-Markson, said the fund was instituted to ensure sustainability of the gains in the education sector and to secure the future of the children.

Describing the educational programme as highly commendable, they added that, with the fund in place, indigent children would have easy access to quality education.

 

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