Kwara State governor, AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq, has engaged a mission team of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) in talks for a partnership to develop basic education in the state.
The JICA team was in Kwara to explore how to support the state in different sectors, especially in education and agriculture.
Kwara had recently been named alongside the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja as beneficiaries of JICA interventions owing to its commitment to basic education development.
The JICA team on basic education was working with the Professor Raheem Adaramaja-led State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB).
Speaking during a courtesy visit by the JICA team to Ilorin, the governor said his administration has invested so much in school infrastructure and human capital development, adding, however, that more interventions were still required to consolidate on the gains in the sector.
He commended JICA for its offer of partnership that he said will complement his administration’s efforts to improve the quality of teaching and learning outcomes in public schools.
“This is a very useful engagement, and we thank you for reaching out to us and for being your brothers’ keepers,” the governor told the JICA’s mission team led by Matsuzaki Mizuki.
JICA’s team lead, Mizuki, said the agency is into providing support for an improved quality in education, especially at the basic level.
“We are here to see how we can support your basic education. This afternoon, we learnt a lot from the Executive Chairman of KWSUBEB. He told us what you have done and some of the challenges you have. We are to inspect the facilities to see things ourselves, and after that, we will go back to Japan and continue discussion on how we can support your state in basic education,” Mizuki stated.
