The Kano government has cried out that some parents are selling uniforms donated to their children by the state government to get money to feed themselves.

Kano Commissioner of Education, Alhaji Ali Haruna Makoda, disclosed this during a recent interactive session with journalists.

He said the action of the parents was motivated by ignorance and abject poverty amounted to sabotage of the government’s effort to ensure zero out-of-school children in the state.

Apart from ensuring free and compulsory education for primary school pupils and secondary school students, Kano state government provide free uniforms, books, biros, pencils and other instructional materials to school children in the state.

“Can you imagine parents selling the uniform of their children provided by the State Government in order to eat,” Makoda lamented.

He revealed that, “the situation is so bad that some parents in one of the Local Government Areas of the state were caught selling the uniforms of their children provided by the State government.”

According to him, the uniforms were part of the more than 800,000 uniforms distributed to primary schools in the state, under the state government’s State of Emergency declared on the education sector.

Makoda also lamented that many of the parents had withdrawn their children from school and drafted them to the farm, added that the inglorious trend had significantly contributed to the high number of out-of-school children roaming the streets of the state capital.

The Commissioner revealed that the state government has stepped up its efforts to address the growing decay in the state’s education sector.

According to him, Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf administration inherited, “a failed and decayed education system,” adding that the state government is taking adequate steps to improve infrastructure, personnel quality and access to education.

Such steps, he said, include a significant increase in the budgetary allocation to the education sector from 29.75 percent in the 2024 financial year to 31.5 percent in 2025 fiscal year.

He recalled that recently Kano government procured and distributed 120,000 cartons of chalk to public schools across the state as part of efforts to ensure conducive and effective learning and teaching atmosphere in the schools.

Makoda said the provision of the items was in line with the present administration’s commitment of improving teaching and learning in public schools to achieve quality education.

He said Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf accords utmost priority to education sector, adding that the Governor would continue to initiate and implement policies targeted towards provision of quality education in the state.

Makoda recalled that in October 2023, Governor Yusuf had launched the distribution of instructional materials worth billions of Naira to public schools across the 44 Local Government Areas of Kano state, including text books, exercise books, white boards, white markers, bags, school sandals and uniforms among others to improve learning and teaching in the public schools.

“So, what the present administration is doing to education is a clear demonstration of its commitment to overhaul the sector and ensure that it remains its first priority through the implementation of sound educational policies,” he added.