By Abdullahi Umar Bunkure
Barely few months of his appointment as Provost of the Sa’adatu Rimi College of Education, Kumbotso in October, 2017. Dr. Yahaya Isah Bunkure has made a tremendous progress in re-positioning the institution to meet up with the modern academic challenges and development but locally and beyond.
The present Sa’adatu Rimi College of Education, Kumbotso was set up in 1981 by the then Kano State government. The initial site of the College (then known as Advanced Teacher’s College, Waje) was near the Katsina Road Pilgrims Camp. In 1982 the college was renamed college of Education, Kumbotso and moved to kilometre 11 along Zaria road, Kano and was placed under the then Kano State Institute for Higher Education.
The College was however decentralized in 1987 and the three Institutions Kano State Polytechnic, Kano State College of Education and Kano State College of Arts Science and Remedial studies under the umbrella became autonomous. At that time the College has two campuses, the one located at Gumel and the other in Kumbotso Districts. The central administration known as the office of the Provost was situated in Gumel.
The creation of Jigawa out of the former Kano State led to a split of the College into Jigawa State College of Education and Kano State College of Education.
Moreover, the Kano State College of Education was equally splitted into two specialists’ campuses, Wudil and Kumbotso, the former handles sciences and vocational Education courses while the later handles Arts, Languages and social sciences. With the creation of Kano University of Science and Technology the two campuses merged again in Kumbotso. The College was renamed by the Kano State government after the name of the deceased wife of the first civilian governor Kano State Hajiya Sa’adatu Abubakar Rimi.
The Institution under the administration of Dr Yahaya Isah Bunkure has commenced offering degree programmes in affiliations with Ahmadu Bello University Zaria and Bayero University Kano.
Also, for the first time in the history of the college, there was fresh accreditation of new courses as that will continue while others are in the interim and are subject to other requirements.
And this is not unconnected with his interest in the area of research in Science Education, Physics Education, ICT in Science Education, Science Education, Ethno science among others.
This is also in line with the vision of the Institution which has always focused in the Production of highly knowledgeable, qualitative, creative and motivated professional teachers through Pre -service and In service programmes for nation building and global acceptance also, the Provision of good, conducive and learner friendly environment for teaching and learning in the college.
In what is seen as tremendous achievements, not quite long in the spirit of togetherness and teamwork, Two (2) New HODs, Deans and Directors were elected and appointed through proper democratic ways and due process for the smooth running of the College. The Institution also benefited from developmental strides of Dr. Isah Yahaya Bunkure with the recent introduction of new courses and programmes which also included Fulfulde language. The staffs of the Institutions were given opportunities to further their education within Nigeria and in other foreign Universities in order to position them very well for the promotion of academic excellence in the college.
Moreover, opportunities were also given to the staffs of the Institutions to attend seminars, conferences across the federation and beyond which is also part of the administrative policy of the seasoned academician Dr Isah Yahaya Bunkure.
However, these achievements are largely due to the ability of the management of the Institution under the leadership Dr. Yahaya Isah Bunkure’s effort to reach out prudence synergy with other relevant stakeholders and their exposures to matters relating to Administration and Teaching Learning business.
He also believes in encouraging universally acceptable best professional practices in Teacher Training pedagogy in the college. And the creation of a proactive academic culture of exchange, experience sharing and the provision of opportunities for capacity building, the establishment of standards in the evaluation processes of the college, and professional development for all the staffs of the Institution of higher learning.
As someone whose research interest is also on ICT in Science Education, he is encouraging and supporting sound ICT culture in the College community to meet up with the current challenges since the world has now become a global village.
He has being collaborating with the immediate local communities and other education stakeholders as well as development oriented partners to attain the vision and goals of the College.
In Dr. Yahaya Isa Bunkure’s quest to reposition and to take the Institution to another level not quite long, in January 2018, he played host to the delegation of a team from the Teacher Development Programme (TDP) of the Department for International Development (DFID) in his office, where he described the constitution of a 13 member high powered committee to develop a teacher education policy by the state governor, Dr. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje as a welcome development.
Dr. Bunkure said this has shown that the major target of the state government is to give special attention on the lingering issue of teacher quality education so as to put in the classroom qualified and competent teachers needed to improve teaching and learning for better outcome.
The Provost, also commended the effort of the Teacher Development Programme (TDP) in complimenting the state government efforts in transforming teacher training and also as the most important international development partner that has come to the College in particular and the state in general as far as education is concerned.
Also in her speech, the DFID regional coordinator head of office, Kano, Hajia Nafisa Ado, briefed the Provost that their visit was part of their annual review where they talk to the beneficiaries of their programmes for them to improve on it. She also expressed satisfaction from what they saw and promised to introduce more programmes for the development of teacher education and the education sector in general.
This is a sign of good things to come in the Sa’adatu Rimi College of Education Kumbotso under the competent leadership of the seasoned academician.
Abdullahi Umar Bunkure, is a Public Affairs Commentator and International Affairs Analyst wrote in from Kano
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