Governor Umar Namadi has praised the Science and Technical Schools Board, Jigawa State, for organising the 2025 Best Teacher Award, describing it as one of the best initiatives to promote teaching and learning in schools in the state.
The Teacher Award Ceremony, the first of its kind, was organised by the Jigawa State’s Science and Technical Education Board under the auspices of the Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology, and is dedicated to celebrating and honouring teachers across the state who have distinguished themselves through selfless and tireless service.
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Speaking at the event in Dutse, the governor described the award ceremony as one of the best initiatives ever introduced in the educational sector of the state.
“This is one of the best initiatives we have seen. Then our effort promotes teaching and learning in our schools. Because if you listen to everybody, if anybody misses you and you punish him, then whoever excels, you must recognise that,” he said.
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He emphasised that improving education depends not only on infrastructure but also on the quality of teachers and the environment in which they teach. According to him:“Teaching and learning are the main things that will improve education. Not only education, everywhere in Nigeria. The quality of teachers, quality of teaching materials, and good environment for learning; as much as possible, as a government, we have tried as much as possible to improve the running environment in all our schools.
“We have not yet achieved what we want to achieve, but progressively, we are moving forward, investing in renovating and upgrading our school infrastructure. This is a process that we’ll continue to do until we achieve our targets.”
Explaining the importance of teachers in the learning process, Governor Namadi noted that infrastructure alone is not sufficient, as there’s no benefit to improving the infrastructure alone without the teachers that will teach the students.
“That is why we embarked on recruiting teachers at all levels of education. This will ensure that we reduce the teacher-student ratio in our schools. In addition to that, we have embarked on training and retraining of our teachers. This is very, very important because different things come up, and new ideas come in, so therefore our teachers need to be updated. And that is why we invest heavily in training and retraining of our teachers.”
He described the Best Teacher Award as a cherished way of motivating teachers so as to spur them into achieving excellence.
“This initiation of the Best Teacher Award is also one of the issues that will help improve the quality of teaching and learning, because it will really encourage the teachers; it will create competition among them, and then that will show that improvement is taking place in our classrooms.”
He urged other education bodies to borrow a leaf from STBS by initiating similar awards in their respective organisations.
“While I will urge not only the Science and Technical Board to continue with this and get more, I call on all other sectors of education, the Senior Secondary School Management Board, as well as the Islamic Education Bureau, to also introduce this kind of award.
“Again, the Ministry of Basic Education should also try to introduce this kind of award, because by the time we cover all the education segments, then we will come back and get an overall best teacher in all the schools in Nigeria, in Jigawa State.”
Governor Namadi also reaffirmed his personal respect for the teaching profession, saying, “Teaching is also my constituency, and I always respect teachers because I always want to make sure that we improve the quality of teaching and learning in our schools. I will try as much as possible to do our best as a government to improve that through training and retraining of our teachers.
The governor concluded by thanking the Science and Technical Schools Board and the Ministry of Higher Education for their innovation, assuring continued government support for the sector.
“I want to assure you that as a government, we’ll continue to support the education sector and all aspects of education because it’s a very, very important sector. I will continue to give them all the support they require for the development of our teachers and for improving the learning outcomes in our school,” he emphasised.
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