By Yunusa Isa, Gombe
The Gombe State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) has organized a four day training workshop for 360 enumerators for the 2024/2025 School Census in the state.
Declaring the training open at the Teachers Resource Centre, Kwami, the Chairman Gombe SUBEB Hon. Babaji Babadidi said “This training is key in the educational planning and development of our dear state”.
Represented by the Permanent Member One in the board, Dr Gambo Adamu Aliyu, the chairman stressed the importance of the census in shaping Gombe State education sector, bridging the gap and providing the necessary equipment and manpower for conducive teaching and learning.
While charging the trainees to give total attention to grab the most needed lessons that could facilitate data gathering while in the field, the chairman said “Gombe State couldn’t take this opportunity made available by the Universal Basic Education Commission for granted, as only few states were selected to benefit from the exercise”.
He noted that “This year’s census exercise will leverage on two web based software applications; Basic Education Management Information System (BEMIS) and District Health Information System (DHIS) to generate the needed data on school structures, pupils and students as well as teachers and equipment”.
On his part, the Director Planning Research and Statistics Gombe State Ministry of Education, Builder Abdulmumini Kwami, said the four day training will equipped the trainees to smoothly execute the 14 day data gathering exercise across the state.
He said the digital census exercise is being monitored realtime, making stakeholders from the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) assess the exercise as it unveils.
The director noted that the exercise will help the state in all aspects of educational planning and development, describing it as key in every educational progress.
Speaking to newsmen, one of the training facilitators Malam Hussaini Haruna from the SUBEB Information Management System, said the census will explore to policy makers and stakeholders the number of students, teachers and structures available in the state’s education sector, as well as the specialization of the teachers and their ratio to students.
Some participants of the four day training Lami Mamman Sanda and Abdullahi Chiroma, expressed optimism in gaining new knowledge and skills from the training, while stressing commitment in paying the needed attention during lessons and putting the knowledge learned in gathering reliable data for educational development in the state.