There has been criticism by people in Yobe State, especially on social media platforms on the unequal distribution of participants in the upcoming Spelling Bee competition in the state.
Dr. Mohammed Goje, the executive secretary of Yobe State Emergency Management Agency (YOSEMA) has made clarifications on why schools from the state capital, Damaturu will dominate the upcoming Spelling Bee competition.
He said that lack of adequate resources is the major reason why the number of school from Damaturu will be more than those from other parts of the state.
Dr. Goje said this in an exclusive phone interview with this reporter while responding to public criticism against the unequal distribution of participating schools in the competition.
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Spelling Bee is a famous competition in the world where school children from different schools compete in the spelling of words.
In Yobe, this is the 2nd edition of the program while the maiden edition took place three years ago, 2021.
Schedule to hold in July this year, the program will host 37 participating schools from Damaturu and four from Potiskum local government area, while two each will come from the remaining 15 local government areas of the state.
The three days program, will be co-hosted by YOSEMA and the State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB).
The project which is not funded by government is a donor initiated program by YOSEMA advocation for institutionalization and to be captured in the state future budget.
Stating further, YOSEMA boss said that despite contributions and support from individual persons in the state, there is still inadequate funds to host many schools from other parts of the state.
He explained that logistics burden will includes transportation, feeding and accommodation among other things, noting that over five million would be spend on feeding alone.
‘’Since we are hosting the program in Damaturu, more schools from there will reduce cost.
‘’From our current budget, we will spend N5,766,000 on feeding alone, and there are hotels, transport and other bills,’’ he said.
He said that even by statistics, there are more schools in the state capital than any of local government area, hence, the need to include more participants from there.
However, he added that there is no enough time to mobilize adequate resources for the program, therefore the need for some adjustments.
He also called for more contributions and support from interested individuals and organizations for the program.
He said contributions can be channeled through YOSEMA and SUBEB respectively.
