ASABA/Nigeria: The Delta State Government said it is working out modalities to boost the study of education in schools through the transformation of colleges of education in the state to a university.
Governor Ifeanyi Okowa disclosed this today at the quarterly press briefing of journalists on sundry issues held at Government House, Asaba.
Okowa, who bemoaned the steady decline in students’ enrolment in colleges of education across the state and country, said that the consideration to transform them to a university of education would help to boost the training of teachers.
The governor, while responding to a question on planned conversion of the College of Education, Agbor to a university, stated that the consideration would be wholistic and would affect all the colleges of education in the state.
He revealed that the government was already working out an arrangement with the Ministry of Higher Education but noted that it was something that would be carefully done, adding that it would take some time.
Governor Okowa, who also addressed concern on the possibility of a general employment of workers across all sectors in the state, complained that the workforce in Delta was already over blotted.
According to him, the state workforce was at a time about 60,000 but said that it had been reduced to about 50,000, adding that at the present figure, the workforce was still the highest in the country.
He explained that employment of workers would be based on need and not necessarily copying what other states were doing, adding, however, that in the 2021 budget proposal, provisions were made for the employment of more teachers.
The government stated that such employment would be in the sciences, where he noted that there were needs, as well as in the new technical colleges being built across the state.
