Lagos — As the global wild fire of the Under 17 world cup moves beyond all frontiers, Bauchi State is in the news once again. This time around the state is not in the news for the wrong reasons; which is a welcome development for a state that is being marketed as a tourism destination.

The speed and determination with which facilities were made ready for the events, without compromising on quality, speaks volumes. The current situation is also a clear departure from the recent past, which saw the state in the news for reasons that are not entirely edifying. Curiously, the 'mayhem' of presumed religious bigotry and sundry ills mischievously touted around the place in recent times do not have their roots, or origins, in the Bauchi State at all.

With Mallam Isa Yuguda's focus on bringing about real development in the state, it is safe to say that the governor has enough headaches, without these trumped up pranks. He won a landslide victory, with its groundswell of genuine enthusiasm from the people and the attendant unfiltered expectations. Part of the task of responsible leadership is to guide expectations in the right direction, rather than respond uncritically to all of them. We know that Yuguda displaced a sitting government on the platform of a rival party he joined only months before the elections. Then he also changed parties. It is only to be expected that all these will have their natural political reverberations, fueling joys and fears. We say nothing, of course, about his pleasant 're-branding' and the matters arising therefrom!

Our concern here is to look beyond the admirable transformation of sporting facilities and rehabilitation of derelict structures that made some events of the on-going global competition possible in Bauchi State and assess Mallam Yuguda from the standpoint of what he has done with the deplorable human capital issues he inherited, among other debilitating problems, two years ago. Beyond merely looking at him, we must ask (as we are now asking and analyzing the various states of the Federation) whether he has his priorities right and whether the major issue of human capital development is getting the deserved attention in the state.

This is important because development is, first and foremost, human capital development. Japan is in the league of the first world today because of the quality of its human capital. Meanwhile this is a country made up of a collection of several scattered islands, each with a very small population. But modern Japan has built a 21st century model economy that is the envy of the world. Yet it has no mineral or natural resources. All it can boast of is the knowledge its citizens bring on the table at any time on any subject under the sun. They have the knowledge and skills to turn the world around with modern technology. Today their major export and income earner is just knowledge, in the form of technology.

And it is precisely in the domain of knowledge that Bauchi and many other states must double-track all they are doing in order to get any meaningful results in the near future. But Yuguda's case is peculiar because he inherited an education sector that showed poor Enrolment figures at all levels in the State. There was also no real drive to impact on the situation. The school feeding programme and other incentives designed to promote enrolment and retention in school were either tokenistic or abandoned altogether. Teachers were too few, too poorly paid and forced to operate in a learning environment that could best be described as prehistoric.

Yuguda began with a patient and detailed review of needs and available resources. Then he prioritized. First it was noted that the operating education budget of N2.6 billion was inadequate and dealt more with overhead and routine administration than with anything that could actually contribute to learning and the growth of knowledge. The figures have since been tripled, with clear, measurable milestone, timelines and deliverables everyone is seeing. Dilapidated secondary schools were reconstructed, renovated and upgraded, to improve the learning environment. The dearth of teaches was tackled, through the re-engagement of over 200 hundred retired but capable teachers; after they were re-assessed and found to be capable of still adding value to knowledge impartation.

The government did not really have much of a choice on this matter, if it was serious about human capital development. No sane state Chief Executive will meet a state with 1500 qualified teachers and a student population of over 150,000 and not do something urgent and drastic to redress the situation. Bauchi's 2007 teacher/student ratio of approximately one teacher to one thousand students simply did not make sense.

That is why, beyond the re-engagement of retired but capable teachers, the state reached an understanding with the NYSC National Secretariat, to provide 1,000 graduate teacher Corps members, to address the matter of teacher-student ratio and meaningful learning and teaching. The state Universal Basic Education SUBEB also got its own stimulus, with additional 900 NCE/Graduate teachers, absorbed from the National teachers scheme, to improve the quality of teaching and learning in primary schools. As I write, (and while the sporting competitions are going on) the state is fine tuning the processes for the establishment of a Teachers' Academy, designed to improve the overall quality of teachers and teaching.

The beauty of the new approach in Bauchi is that it is focusing simultaneously on improving the quality of education, the teacher-student ratio, the learning environment, enrolment and retention. The government is not satisfied to just increase enrolment at the beginning of the academic year, but is taking clear measures to ensure that the children continue to go to school and are retained in the schools.

The annual school feeding programme got a 100 per cent increase, with measurable evidence of positive impact on pupil retention in schools. This is precisely what the programme was instituted to achieve in the first place. The challenges of the learning environment in the areas of hygiene and sanitation were resolved simultaneously, with the general improvement of physical infrastructure, through the provision of potable water and water boreholes in schools. The logic of all this is quite simple: put in all that is needed and let every sphere reinforce the other; so that the overall grooming of the child will happen as a matter of course.

Bauchi State now has six secondary schools for married women. They were set up by Yuguda, to enable the beneficiaries improve themselves and not see marriage as the last bus stop for self development and self actualization. And to ensure equity and access, the State Government located the schools in the six Emirates in the state. This initiative is quite apart from the Girl-child education programme that got a boost, with a pilot project in six Local Government Areas of the State, under phase 1. There is also a programme for improved vocational education, which has seen scores of Bauchi State indigenes sponsored to study advanced welding and fabrication at the Nigerian Naval College Sapele in Delta State.

The state's adult and non formal education agency now has a new brief: to make sure that the value of education is understood and to ensure that age, academic, western education and survival skills do not elude people because of age; or their preference for vocational training. Furniture, teaching aids and teachers conditions of service have all been rejigged for optimal performance. And, in response to the life style of the people and the educational needs of those who drive the local economy in Bauchi State, there is an increase in funding for the Nomadic Education Agency, based on a sober assessment of the actual needs and expected deliverables from the Agency.

It is against the background of the detailed policy framework for a realistic and sustainable human capital development programme for the state that Bauchi State has been investing in academic infrastructure in the last two years. It is important to make this point, because we have seen scores of leaders celebrating investment in education by merely building/renovating classrooms. Such interventions are often done without a coherent conceptual framework for sustainable knowledge impartation. But the case of Bauchi is different.

It was after a clear conceptualiation of where the state should be going with education, and after addressing the human capital issues that actually lead to knowledge growth that the state government moved on to provide 20,000 twin desks for students in various schools across the state. This is in addition to the furniture for the offices of school principals and over 6 million copies of assorted text books distributed to all public schools in Bauchi State.

There is also a 100 per cent review of scholarships for indigent students of tertiary institutions. Law students are being primed for the ICT driven world of today through state-provided laptops. The WAEC & NECO examinations fees of 21,000 candidates from Bauchi State were paid by the State Government. Laboratories are being equipped and improved in secondary schools; just as more teachers are being recruited and given incentives to perform. Meanwhile, the Abubakar Tatari Polytechnic, the College of Education in Azare and the A.D. Rufa'I College of Legal Islamic Studies, Misau, all now have improved infrastructure and academic content. Go check the accreditation status of most of their courses before May 2007 and now.

That is why we now find that, at the level of academic excellence and institutional credibility, most of the courses taught in these institutions received accreditation within the last two years. And, for the first time in a long time, teachers and lecturers in Bauchi State have something to smile about, with their salaries now prompt and on the new CONTISS scale. They also now have a 20 per cent increase on their rent and meal subsidies.

While working at establishing a state university, with a main campus in Azare and two campuses in Misau and Bauchi, Bauchi State has set out to actualize the establishment of the College of Medical Sciences at the ATBU; by ceding the college of Agriculture of the State Polytechnic, and starting work on a new college of Agriculture at Kagere.

The state also now has a scheme that selects the twenty brightest students from its twenty local government areas for sponsorship abroad. That exercise is already bearing fruit. The special programmes covers a state sponsored training for 20 female student doctors abroad, 20 students for aeronautical engineering and piloting and another 25 students for petroleum engineering in the United States of America. The news is that one of the best students in an all American class in aeronautical engineering today is a Bauchi State youth form pathetically indigent parents who is a beneficiary of this programme.

It appears the right foundations are being laid. Japan, Singapore, America, Israel, and many other countries that now prance about as if they came down from the moon are what they are today because of good leadership that turned them into knowledge havens of the 21st century.

While much that leads to real progress is going on in Bauchi and in several other states of the Federation, the emphasis in public commentary appears to be on the negative. Of course, we must make an exception here when we think of what is going on in Anambra State at the moment. Only last week I asked a well placed friend of mine whether his state had space for 'fellow Nigerians' who wished to show their faith in the Nigerian Federation by becoming citizens of their state. Rather than answer my question he mumbled something about Anambra and then changed the subject.

Pressed for an explanation, he said, "I don't know, but I think all emergent millionaires and billionaires in PDP make their money from Anambra State. Your state also pays all the money needed for annual routine administration of the party secretariat; because of the quantity of forms and levies your people pay. All new charges, like the ten thousand naira per delegate for party primaries and the five million naira for governorship, are tested on your people." Meanwhile Anambra politicians have no real voice in the party. Their state is one of the most neglected. In my place people will say: 'The person wey do dis thing for Anambra people e no go better for am'.

I changed the subject, keeping a straight face!!!

Dr. Ikechukwu is of the International Institute of Leadership and Governance.