Aregbesola: Securing Osun future through promotion of functional education

Robert F. Kennedy, the 64th United States Attorney General states “The best cure for destructive sprawl is to build cities people don’t want to abandon, places where they can live healthy, fulfilling lives in densities that don’t devour our landscapes, pave our wilderness and pollute our watersheds, air, and wildlife. To achieve this, we need to invest in urban schools, transportation, parks, health care, police protection, and infrastructure that makes cities great magnets with gravity sufficient to draw back the creeping suburbs.” —

It’s well understood that the quality of schools has a significant influence on student achievement, and in turn on society’s future; and economic competitiveness. Schoolsare also public infrastructure, and their location, design, and physical condition may well be one of the most important determinants of neighborhood quality, regional growth and change, and quality of life.

In recognition of the strategic role of education in the society, Governor Rauf Aregbesola, in his six integral action plan promised to ‘promote functional education’, and since inception of his administration, he has been working assiduously to restructure the public school education and restore the standard, quality and discipline to the schools.

Aregbesola's bold move to restructure the public education in the state had not just brought new look to the education sector but also bring a new turn of event to the future generations. The state of Osun has gotten her greatest medal, among her peers, in the education sector. There is extra-ordinary concentration on the education sector by the Aregbesola’s administration. Education infrastructure in the state has changed face; the public school system is now functioning.

On June 26, 2018, Aregbesola’s administration delivered the fifth High School being constructed by his government. Aregbesola's administration had embarked on the construction of state-of-the-art 100 Elementary Schools, 50 Middle Schools and 11 High Schools.

As at the time of this report, 28 Elementary Schools, 26 Middle Schools and nine High Schools have been completed while the Government High Schools in Ikirun and Iwo would be completed by July ending, according to the Commissioner for Information and Strategy, State of Osun.  Aside the construction of the new school, the noble Aregbesola's administration has upgraded and renovated more than 2000 classrooms in old schools

Nigeria’s Minister for Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu commissioned the 3000 student capacity state-of-the-art Ayedaade Government High School, Ikire, in Irewole Local Government of the State of Osun last Tuesday.   

Each of the high school is a three-in-one school with the capacity to accommodate 3,000 students. Each school has four principals with three superintending over 1,000 pupils each, and an overall senior principal. Base on the set standard, each school has 72 classrooms of 49-square-meters, each capable of sitting 49 students. It has six offices for study groups, and also equipped with six laboratories, 48 toilets for pupils and another eight for teachers, one science library, one arts library, facility manager’s office, a bookshop and a sickbay.

Other facilities include senior principal’s office, three principals’ offices, a bursar’s office, three general staff offices, a record store and security shed/reception, which have been fully furnished, as well as borehole and power transformer.

Each school complex also has 1,000 square-meters of floor space multi-purpose function hall capable of sitting 1,000 students for external examinations. The hall has storage for equipment, utility storage, a stage, office space, documents storage, four female toilets and four male toilets.

For sporting activities, the school has an Olympic-sized football field, seven lane sprinting tracks for 100 meters and 400 meters events and an outdoor basketball court that doubles as tennis court. The complex has ample parking space for more than 75 vehicles.

Commissioning the Ayedaade High school, Ikire, Adamu lauded Aregbesola’s intervention in the education sector, saying that the governor is taking a leading role in Nigeria in the restructuring of public school education. He maintained that the education policyof Osun is in tandem with that of the Federal government which aims at improving school enrolment.

Adamu who noted that Aregbesola has turned the state into a true metropolitan state, emphasised that what the administration of the present government has done in the education sector is more than that of any state. He said the construction of modern school structures coupled with the school Feeding programme of the state is capable of getting out of school children back to school, which the federal ministry of education has been clamouring for.

The Minister explained that Aregbesola is steering the ship of the state to achieving meaningful growth and development through various policies aimed at improving the state's education sector, stressing that any state that gets the education sector right is on the path to development.

He said, "I am old enough to have experienced what the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo did and achieved in the education sector during his time. Awolowo ensured that every child no matter the background gets the best of education. Aregbesola is rekindling that today through what he is doing in the education sector. The school feeding programme which Aregbesola started fully and the modern school structures being built is enough to increase enrolment in school and that is what the federal ministry of education is clamouring for. What Aregbesola has done in the state and in the education sector can only be achieved by a determined governor and one that truly has the passion to do well for the masses.

"The Federal ministry of education is always proud of what the governor has achieved in the education sector in Osun, what Aregbesola has done to education in Osun is wonderful and the state is firmly on the right path to development.”

In his address, Aregbesola said his government decided to invest heavily in the public school education because of the realization that a failure to that is tantamount to planning for a future of doom. Aregbesola made passionate call for the promotion of public school education in Nigeria, saying that the children of the poor deserve to go to good school.

Aregbesola said public school education, which is populated with children of the down trodden should be developed, make attractive and standardized for quality education delivery to the school children. He called on all governments to invest in public school education if the nation wants to have peace and move forward.

The governor who emphasised that the past glory of public schools needs to be rekindled for the benefit of all, noted that public school buildings used to be the best structures in the community before past governments neglected it.

According to Aregbesola, "I am convinced that the future of our state is secured because we have invested so much to upgrade public school structures in Osun. If all governments decide to turn a blind eye on the education of the down trodden then the future of the nation is doomed. We all know that public school structures used to be the best in the communities where people of my age bracket grew up before it was neglected by past governments. We seriously need to bring back the lost glory of our public schools because that is where we have majority of pupils and they also deserve the best. This is why this administration has been investing hugely in the education sector".

In the concluding part of his speech, Adamu the Federal Minister for Education said: “The future of the state of Osun is definitely secured because the present administration is investing into the future of the state through education. What I have seen on ground in Osun is not found in any state of the federation, it is really unprecedented.”