Borno State Governor, Babagana Zulum, says his administration will, this year, commence afternoon primary and secondary education system to address problems of congestion and increase enrollment of out-of-school children.

Zulum said this during his inauguration speech after taking an oath of office for second term in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, on Monday, May 29.

The governor said: “Although we have built dozens of new Mega-Size schools and expanded existing schools with about 1000 new classrooms, we are still faced with issues of congestion in classrooms; and with the worse problem of having thousands of out-of-school children despite being of school-ages.

“I am happy to announce that Borno State will soon commence afternoon primary and secondary schools system.

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“I am appointing an implementation committee to work out modalities for starting the afternoon school system, and it (the committee) will be identifying pilot schools to be selected from some of our mega schools in Maiduguri which have good lightening systems.”

He stated that introducing afternoon schools would entail increased number of staff, directing the office of the Head of Service to carefully identify some well-certificated officials currently redundant at government secretariats, who will be trained on school orientation and can be deployed to hold non-teaching positions in afternoon schools.

Zulum added that security measures will be taken to ensure success of the afternoon schools, noting that classes may sometimes extend till evening.

Governor Zulum, who also announced a plan to recruit 5,000 teachers during his second term in office, said other measures such as mock examinations in secondary schools will be re-introduced.

He disclosed that centres of excellence will be established to allow the government to harness the potential of less privileged children.

The Star