Pupils steal the show as Bunkure LGA hosts the Annual School Census Flag Off

Benefits of education,
This is a song for parents and children (x 2)
Whoever has a child should enrol him/her in a school,
Education assumes the role of a parent to a child in their absence,
It eliminates illiteracy and prevents blindness, Pursuit of education is bitter in the beginning,
It is bitter than anything that is bitter,
Education if acquired is sweet,
Its sweetness cannot be defined by any measure!

With this song which she improvised and sang spontaneously, Zainab Musa, 14 years of age set the stage for the launch of the seminal Annual Schools Census (ASC) 2014. She is a pupil of Bunkure Central Primary School, the venue of the Kano State official flag-off ceremony. This emotional song stirred dignitaries into action, firing them up with renewed vigour to circle around the Permanent Secretary, MoE for the symbolic launch.

The lyrics speak volumes for the importance of education. The event was attended by major stakeholders in the sector. The ASC, an initiative created and supported by ESSPIN, has become a centre stage of activities as evidenced by the comments of HamisuLambu, the Senior Special Adviser to the Executive Governor on Education who said “I cannot see us achieving anything or making any headway in supporting basic education without vital data generated through the ASC. Any and every education policy formulation and execution that is based on catastrophic assumptions invalid data is doomed to fail. What the ASC has done for us is to help us realign our programmes, rejuvenate our efforts and take informed decisions in the education sector, and today, you can see the result. The Executive Governor is solidly behind this activity. The spike in enrolment is phenomenal, thanks to ESSPIN.”

In his remarks, Wada Zakari, the Executive Chairman of SUBEB Kano said, “ASC is a critical event that defines our success in the area of propping up basic education in the state. I will give an analogy to buttress my point. Imagine a husband who is working towards buying the necessary items for his family to celebrate an important event in the calendar; if he goes out without making an informed list of what he wants to buy, he may likely go to that market only to miss the right thing to buy. A well-researched list will help him make informed choices. This is the same with the ASC which allows for the necessary estimation of investment in time, money and resources that are required to reform the education sector.”