Kebbi State Governor Nasir Idris has said that Kebbi is the only state that provides free education and scholarships to students studying within and outside the country.
The governor recently revealed that he has paid approximately N2.7 billion to settle the tuition fees of both students within Nigeria and citizens studying abroad.
Speaking during a courtesy visit by the Senior Special Assistant (SSA) to the President on Students’ Matters, Mr Sunday Dare, in Government House, Birnin Kebbi, Governor Nasir shared that the state pays tuition fees for its students up to secondary and tertiary institutions.
“It might interest you to note that it is only Kebbi that offers total free education in Nigeria.
We pay tuition fees for all our students up to secondary and tertiary institutions.
Recently, I paid N2.7 billion tuition fees for both students studying across tertiary institutions within and outside Nigeria,” he said.
According to him, his government guarantees total scholarships to the students, and it helps to ease the financial burden on struggling parents.
Explaining that the recent increment of tuition fees has made it very hard for some parents to cope, he stated that free education makes life easy for mothers and fathers.
“We are doing this to remove the stress and burden from the parents.
Some parents may have more than three children in tertiary institutions.
If the money is too much, some parents might not be able to shoulder the school fees especially in this period where many tertiary institutions have increased their tuition fees.
That is why we deem it fit to shoulder the responsibility of free education, scholarships to all our students,” Gov. Nasir said.
He disclosed that the Kebbi government also funds the feeding of students across boarding schools in the state, noting that funding recently increased from N150 million to N300 million monthly.
Gov. Nasir Idris concluded by saying that his government will keep rehabilitating primary and secondary schools to deliver a conducive learning environment for the students.
“To enhance the learning environment, my administration has rehabilitated 2,004 primary and secondary schools, while over 340 new ones were constructed,” he added.
