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Former President Goodluck Jonathan has praised the efforts of the Bayelsa State Governor Seriake Dickson in developing education in the state.
Jonathan, who gave the commendation at the launch of the Bayelsa Education Development Trust Fund in Yenagoa on Friday, said Dickson deserved praise for focusing on education.
He said the governor’s achievements would outlive his tenure.
Jonathan said the efforts of the state were in line with his educational policy when he was governor in 2006 to end illiteracy in Bayelsa.
A statement by the Special Adviser to the governor on Media Relations, Fidelis Soriwei, quoted the former president as saying that the Education Development Trust would drastically change the story of Bayelsa as a state that was once listed among disadvantaged states.
The ex-President said, “I appreciate what Governor Dickson is doing regarding education. We all know that the only way you liberate and uplift a people is through education. From where I started as a child, if I didn’t go to school nobody would have known me outside my village but today l’m known all over the world because I was able to go to school. So supporting education is key.
“Governor Dickson has done much higher than I projected in 2006 in terms of expansion of educational work. Today, let me also thank Governor Dickson for this initiative because most problems we have in governance is not scarcity of good ideas but how will that endure?
“By setting up a board established by law has made the Education Development Trust Fund endure beyond his eight years in office and that really has made me very happy and my foundation will continue to partner this board.”
Dickson, in his remarks, said his administration viewed investment in the education sector not as a burden but as a responsibility because of its far reaching impact on the society.
He called on the private sector and all people of goodwill to support the education trust fund stressing that education must be seen as a collective responsibility of all.
The governor, who emphasised that a lack of education was at the root of instability, militancy and insurgency, urged multinational oil companies to emulate the Nigerian Army by adopting secondary schools already built by the state government.
He said that the state government had committed N80bn to the development of educational infrastructure in Bayelsa State aside from salaries in pursuit of the vision to create access to education in the state.
According to him, the state has 13 functional model secondary schools with about 10,000 young Bayelsans enjoying free education in quality boarding secondary schools.
In his remarks, Chairman of the occasion, Prof. John Pepper Clark, praised the governor for charting a new course in the development of human capital.
In his welcome address, the Chairman of the Education Development Trust Fund, Prof. Turner Isoun, assured donors of the judicious use of the funds as the books of the board were open for external auditing.
