Bayelsa Education Development Trust Fund (BEDTF)
Bayelsa Education Trust Fund laments failure of donors to redeem financial pledges to Board
[From CHRIS EZE, Yenagoa]
Bayelsa Education Development Trust Fund (BEDTF) on Thursday lamented failure of corporate bodies and individuals to redeem pledges of financial support to the board.
Speaking when the Publicity Committee of the board paid a familiarization visit to the Federated Correspondents’ Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, (NUJ), Bayelsa Council, the Executive Secretary, Dr. (Mrs) Alice Atuwo revealed that of the total sum of N950 million pledged by donors, only about N53 million had been redeemed.
According to Dr Atuwo, the board is responsible for the feeding, running and maintenance of the eleven boarding schools located in the eight local government areas through the Ministry of Education including the payment of WAEC and NECO fees of students in the state model schools.
The Executive Secretary, who was accompanied by the Chairman of the Publicity Committee of the board, High Chief Fidelis Agbikii, Secretary of the Committee, Seyeifa Koinyan, John Angese, and other members of the committee, said the Board has also carried out various interventions at the state owned Niger Delta University, NDU, University of Africa, Toru-Orua, and the state Medical University, Yenagoa.
She also disclosed that the Board has also been involved in the training and re-training of teachers through the Teachers Training Registration and Certification Board, adding that 650 have been trained already while another batch of training is expected to hold next year.
She said that the Board spends on the average N140 million monthly to take care of the 5,000 students spread in the 11 model schools in the state, adding that they received a total of N5.8 billion in the first tenure of the board from 2017 to 2020.
“The general purpose of the Board is to contribute to the upgrading of education in the state; this is an interventionist agency in the educational sector and the first of its kind in any state.
“Taxes are the sources of our resources, every worker in the state and local government is contributing towards this board. The government also brings in an inflow of 5% from the Internally Generated Revenue, IGR, then there is a 1% inflow from the capital payments from the government, and over the years we have reached out to philanthropic individuals, international donor agencies and Non-Governmental Organizations, NGOs.
“At the time of our inauguration there were five existing public model schools but today we have eleven of them at least one in each of the local government area including the Sports Academy and the Ijaw National Academy.
“The students (scholars) that we sponsor, it is the Ministry of Education that runs those schools with the Post Primary Schools Board, we do not implement any programme but we only sponsor as an interventionist agency. We provide for the running and maintenance of the model boarding schools in the state, an average of five thousand students and it is a monthly expenditure.
“The feeding and running of the schools and maintenance of the model schools takes about 80% of our income but the law does not limit us only to the model secondary schools, it’s for education, that is from primary to tertiary, so we also have intervention in tertiary institutions.
“At the tertiary education NDU is benefiting from us in the area of ICT, at the University of Africa, Toru-Orua, we sponsor research and training, we have a Computer Based Testing Centre, CBTC, for UTME, and we also contributed to the take-off of the Bayelsa Medical University, BMU, by intervening in the accreditation of courses, and we have also related with the Teachers Training Registration and Certification where we trained 650 teachers during our first tenure and another training is expected to hold next year.”
The Chairman of the Publicity Committee of the Board, High Chief Agbiki, said the visit was to open a new vista of relationship with the media in a profitable manner for the board.
In his remarks, the Chairman of the Federated Correspondent’s Chapel, Mr. Chris Eze, who commended the Education Development Trust Fund for the visit, said the visit has given Journalists insight into the activities of the Board, and called for more collaboration and synergy with journalists in the state.
