The governor of Osun state, Rauf Aregbesola, is a man that continues to be in the news for various issues; especially for various innovations that has generated diverse reactions from people. But despite the criticisms that trail his revolutionary development projects, his blue print for education continues to be a template for others to follow.
Indeed, education remains an area that his administration has recorded landmark progress; having built over 60 mega schools and renovated several others across the state.
The recent commissioning of an ultra modern, 3000 capacity steel technology model high school, renamed Ilesa Government High School from Ilesa Grammar School reiterated the governor’s commitment to education.
The school is one of the eleven schools built from the N11.4bN Sukuk bond floated by Aregbesola in 2013 to fund government’s massive education infrastructure provision projects, some of which had earlier been commissioned.
Speaking on the topic, “The Making of the Educated Person,” during the commissioning, Aregbesola said the state now has public schools that can compete favourably with the best in the world and are the ones to beat in the country, adding that the provision of the new school buildings is in fulfillment of his administration’s promise to provide functional education to children in the state.
“All these are in fulfillment of our promise to provide functional basic education. This stems from our conviction that every child is owed basic education. It is a fundamental and inalienable right of every child. We have gone to this length and committed such huge amount on education because we are preparing for the future.
“This includes the capacity to observe, understand and make sense out of nature, creation and one’s environment in the most basic form. To write means also that one can graphically reproduce one’s thought, observations, ideas and received knowledge in clear, free flowing prose, in at least one language.
“We are therefore developing the new literate man, a man not just for himself but for the collective, who sees his own existence and value in light of other members of the society,” he stated.
He added that the new schools are capable of training the new minds for the new world driven by technology, explaining that the eleven high schools, will each graduate 11,000 students every year and in the space of 10 years, they would have turned out 110,000 first set of students and in the next 50 years, it would be 550,000 world beaters, occupying strategic positions nationally and globally.
He urged parents to play its part just as the government has played its own part and let children realise the importance of education.
Many have since the commissioning given accolades to the administration for its landmark achievements in education. The monarch of the town, Oba Adekunle Aromolaran, who performed the official commissioning said “I am happy and fulfilled that we have public schools that can compete with the best in the world and indeed, our new schools are the ones to beat around here.
The Ooni of Ile Ife, Oba Ogunwusi, who was also in attendance said the huge investment of the administration would speak for decades particularly as it affects the generation yet unborn. “No matter how disdainful anyone is to this administration; if such person sees what is dedicated on these structures, such a person will doff his or her cap for the tenets and dedication employed on Osun education system.”
The Minister of Health, Isaac Adewole stated that, “My job as a minister of health has allowed me to traverse the length and breadth of Nigeria and I can boldly tell you that as former vice chancellor of the premier university in Nigeria, I have not seen any governor in Nigeria today who has contributed influentially and meaningfully like Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola to the education sector, the schools infrastructures are world class.”
For the old students of Ilesa Grammar School, though they would have preferred the name to remain unchanged and had resisted efforts to rename it, they are grateful for what the government has done in the school. Speaking on behalf of the alumni of the school, a member of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC), Professor Femi Odekunle, said all the old students of the school are grateful to Aregbesola, adding that the controversy over the slight change in the name of the school was needless.
The 3000 capacity school is a three-in-one facility, each with its principal with an overall senior principal. It has 72 Classrooms of 49 square-meters each capable of sitting 49 students. It has 1000 square-meters of floor space hall capable of sitting 1000 students for external examinations, an Olympic sized football field, 7-lane sprinting tracks for 100 meters and 400 meters events, and a parking space for at least 75 cars among other features.
It was not all accolades however as a former Head of the Osun State Civil Service, Elder Olusegun Akinwusi has raised alarm of what he referred to as unsustainable loan by the Administration of Rauf Aregbesola
But in reaction to this view, the state Commissioner for Innovation, Science and Technology, Engr Oluremi Omowaiye, said Osun has not taken loan beyond it capacity, describing attacks on Osun debt profile as needless and the work of mischief makers. He stated that the USA is the most indebted country in the world and again the most viable economically; adding that the loan in question was instrumental to the infrastructure revolution the state continues to witness.
Speaking on maintenance of school facilities, the state Commissioner for Information, Mr Adelani Baderinwa said the state has engaged service of facilities managers to manage the new schools under a company established by the state government for the purpose.
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