From Femi Folaranmi, Yenagoa
The Bayelsa Education Development Trust Fund (EDTF) has declared that its interventions in the education sector have accelerated improved quality in the state.
The Chairman of the Publicity and Sensitisation Committee of EDTF, Mr. Fidelis Agbiki, disclosed this during a media parley with members of the Federated Correspondents’ Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, Bayelsa State Council.
According to him, since its inception, the EDTF’s primary responsibility has been to ensure overall educational development through interventions in critical areas by executing several programmes that have improved the education sector.
Agbiki listed some of the projects, including water projects in schools across the state, renovation and equipping of sickbays, training of teachers, distribution of science and agricultural equipment to secondary schools, and feeding of boarding students in the 13 Model Secondary Schools and Science and Technical Colleges.
Agbiki maintained that the board succeeded because it comprised technocrats, adding that “we cannot afford to do anything to stain the reputation we have built over time.”
He disclosed that the board’s funding comes from various sources, including government and civil servants, which are ploughed back judiciously.
“We cannot say we have achieved one hundred in every thing but we tried our best. We are an interventionist agency of the Ministry of Education. They are our supervisor.
“They do the structural things and we only intervene. All those buildings of schools are not part of our assignment we just intervene in some situations to salvage the situation.
“We have enough personnel to be able to work. We have a very symbiotic relationship with the Ministry of Education but we don’t cross borders.
“We are asking for more money to be invested into the board and allow us to spread to more areas. We need funds to improve, we need more money to be able to spread to more primary schools.
“We are principally feeding the students in boarding schools. That is a priority for us. About thirteen of them with the new set of technical schools that the government is bringing.
“We don’t have any government interference. We work in synergy and we have done very well in that and we have been able to do that because we have been courageous to some extent.”
On feeding and some complaints, Agbiki said EDTF does not award contracts, stressing that it provides the funds while the Ministry of Education sources the contractors.