Basic Education in Bauchi State is in a bad condition, where two hundred and seven public schools, across the twenty local government area have no teachers.

According to statistics, the figure represents 6.3% of the total number of public schools managed by the state and local government authorities across the state.

The entire public schools in the state were manned by 16,503 male and female teachers.

The statistics revealed that “The qualified male teachers are 9,104 while the female ones are 5,406, making 14,510.”

Total number of classrooms are 14,499, while the useable ones are 13,067.

Available statistics shows that the total number of teachers with certification in English language is 3,416 representing 21%, while the number of teachers with certification in other Nigerian languages is 1,232 which represents 7.5%.

To improve the above data, USAID funded LEARN to Read project advocated the need for the Bauchi State House of Assembly to support the additional budgetary allocation to Basic Education.

This would go a long way in changing negative narratives.

The Budget Planning and Policy Reform Specialist of the USAID funded LEARN to Read project, Abdullahi Abubakar gave the indication in Kano, at the just concluded two-day orientation for members of the State House of Assembly on their oversight roles.

Abubakar said the state house of assembly’s support in improving the basic education budgetary allocation was needed the most towards addressing the the myriads of problem in the education sector.

In a paper “Role of Legislature in Improving Basic Education”, the Specialist said lower level teaching and learning was in an excruciating state, where the Bauchi State government’s expenditure on each primary and Junior Secondary School pupil in 2019/2020 School Year was ₦19,264 and it suddenly dropped to ₦13,030 in 2020/2021 School year.

However, in 2019/2020 School Year, the total amount spent on each Senior Secondary School student is ₦6,089, the figure decrease to ₦5,854 in 2020/2021 School Year.

Whereas on a single tertiary institution student in 2019/2020 academic session, the state government spent ₦179,770 it sharply rose to ₦229,633 in 2020/2021 academic session.

In 2019/2020 School Year, the total Budget by the State Government in education and non-education, was ₦124,643,279,717, while in 2020/2021, the state increased it to ₦178,117,693,381.

Total Expenditure on Education by state government in 2019/2020 School Year, is ₦9,730,295,769 representing 8% and in 2020/2021 School Year, the state government expended ₦17,301,896,892, which represents 10%.

In an interview, the Speaker of the Bauchi State House of Assembly, Abubakar Sulaiman expressed shock on the presented data, and assured of the 10th state Assembly’s resolve to reverse the trend.

Sulaiman said “everyone of us here is touched and by the grace of the Almighty when we return home, by these presentation of very rich papers from different resource persons, we’ll return as changed personalities in our various constituencies, because we learned a lot and we’ll make sure that we bring the needed change to our people”.

The focus of the USAID’s LEARN to Read project in Bauchi State is to ensure that pupils in primary One and Two, can read and write in the language of their immediate environment particularly Hausa language.