Some are of the opinion that the O-governor has turned the State around while others are of the opinion that the O-governor has not justified the resources at his disposal with the tarrying projects he was making media promotion all around about.
The true State of the O-State and the Os
A. O-Schools
This is a program of the government of Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola in the education sector to build new structures in the selected public Schools.
The government promised to construct 20 High Schools, 25 Middle Schools and 40 Elementary Schools across the state.
Currently, only Ejigbo High School has been completed for use while about four are at various degrees of completion. These are Osogbo High School, Ataoja School of Science, Unity High School and Ilesa High School.
Others are yet to take off.
About 10 Middle Schools have been completed while some others are under construction.
Low number of Elementary Schools have been completed so far while some others are under construction.
However, there was a claim by GEJ when he came to campaign in Osun shortly before last election that Construction of Elementary and Middle Schools were funded by Universal Basic Education Board (UBEB) under FG which has never been disclaimed by the O-State as far as I know.
The O-State lawmakers in the 7th National Assembly was said also to have constructed 9 Middle Schools across the 9 Federal Constituencies in the state.
The twist to the whole thing is that SUKUk loan of #11billion was taken to support the O-Schools project. The loan which the O-State claimed attracts no interest was later said by some opposition parties in the state in their petitions to EFCC that the loan was taken at 14% compound interest payable in 20 years.
B. Education Reforms
The government has introduced a number of policies in its bid to reform O-Education.
These include:
1. Opon Imo (Tablet of Knowledge)
The government budgeted for procurement of 50,000 units of these tablets for the use of all Students and teachers of all high schools in the state from SS1 to SS3 across the state.
However 3000 units were said to have been supplied so far while only SS3 students in some selected schools have access to the tablets when WAEC is approaching just as they would be returned before their final paper.
Presently there is no school students with Opon Imo across the state.
2. O-Uniform
The government introduced the use of the same school uniform across the state in the three levels of education: Elementary,Middle and High Schools respectively.
The school uniforms are produced by Omoluabi Garment Factory, Osogbo owned by SAM & SERAH, a Lagos based company.
The uniforms (seriously of poor quality) were given to students freely in the first instance while they buy subsequently.
Again the uniform has been changed across the three levels from the initial type.
The use of the same school uniforms and *merger of schools* have been blamed for several free-for-all and indiscipline among the students of public schools which still persist due to difficulty in identifying which school a student belongs.
3. Schools Merger
This policy was introduced to merge 2-4 schools together to ensure effective utilization of human and material resources which are said to be lacking or inadequate in some schools.
The policy led to the end of some legacy schools like Fakunle Comprehensive High School, a first class school in OSUN (demolished and the space abandoned since 2013) , St Charles Boys Grammar School (now with Girls) and Baptist Girls School (now with Boys) while some others were relegated to middle schools and many permanently discontinued.
Meanwhile the hosting schools became congested with about 150 students occupying a classroom of 40-45 students especially in urban areas like Osogbo.
That's amazingly barbaric and unprecedented.
The students were asked not to buy textbooks and the government didn't provide same.
The government said students should not pay development/PTA fees and the government does not pay running grants thus exam questions were written on the chalkboard.
It's a whole rigmarole.
Other Os shall be critically looked into in the subsequent releases till 27th November ,2015 when the Governor shall hold his 5th year anniversary.
Thank you.
AO wrote:
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