The Director-General, National Teachers Institute (NTI), Dr Ladan Sharehu, has decried the poor state of facilities at the organisation’s training centres in the country.

He made the remark at a meeting of the 37 chairmen of states Universal Education Board in Kaduna.

Sharehu urged the state education authorities to provide adequate facilities at the centres before the take-off of the 2011 MDGs training programme for teachers on September 5 in the six geo-political zones.

The facilities that were urgently required at the centres, he added, included furniture, conveniences and classrooms.

Sharehu appealed to the chairmen and commissioners for education attending the meeting to assist in providing the facilities.

He appealed to the stakeholders to work toward the attainment of President Goodluck Jonathan’s transformation agenda for the education sector.

The Director-General expressed concern over the enlistment of “people who have no business with the programme’’.

“It is sad that in some states, people who have no business with education are the ones being nominated to attend the workshops.

“It was also observed that payment of allowances to participants has been a major challenge since the commencement of the exercise in 2006.”

“However, remarkable improvement was recorded in the exercise last year, while efforts will be made to  ensure a hitch-free implementation of the current programme.’’

He said the programme had recorded some progress in spite of the challenges encountered during the previous exercises.

Speaking on behalf of his colleagues, the Chairman of Zamfara SUBEB, Alhaji Aliyu Ahmed, promised that the boards would cooperate with the institute to ensure that its programmes were successfully implemented.

He commended the institute for its efforts in executing the MDGs training programmes, which he said had improved the standard of teachers’ service delivery in public schools.

The meeting was also attended by commissioners for education and NUT officials.