The Oyo State Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology, Professor Dahud Shangodoyin, has said that the Seyi Makinde-led administration allocated the second-highest portion of the 2020 budget, being 22.37 per cent, to education because the governor recognises that education is key to human development in the state.
Professor Shangodoyin said this during the presentation of awards to deserving partners, winners of various competitions and scholarship awardees at the recent Raising Girls Ambition (RAGA) 2019 international conference. The presentation ceremony held at the Commissioner’s Office, Oyo State Secretariat, Ibadan on Monday.
He thanked Global Youth Leadership and Girl-Child Foundation (GYLGF), organisers of the RAGA conference, for also organising the competitions where the winners emerged from, adding that school competitions were part of the ministry’s focus for 2020.
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“Our focus as educationists and as a ministry is that we want to encourage school competitions in 2020,” he said.
Professor Shangdoyin encouraged the students to also organise peer competitions among themselves in order to boost one another’s academic performances.
The commissioner also noted the efforts of GYLGF in bringing out-of-school children back to school. He said that his ministry would welcome partnership with GYLGF to increase enrolment rates and reduce the number of out-of-school children in Oyo State.
He appreciated the inclusion of both public and private schools in RAGA conferences, adding that the ministry’s educational interventions also included public and private schools.
In her address, founder of GYLGF and convener of RAGA conference, Dr Adepeju Oti said that RAGA was all about bringing the girl-child into school, keeping her in school, and enabling her to actualise her ambitions.
Dr Oti decried society’s general attitude of underestimating the abilities of the girl-child. She said that “for many parents in our society, females have become more or less second-class citizens. Many parents don’t provide adequately for their girls. Even schools also are part of the network of repressing the girl-child.”
She added that the public presentation of winners of the debate, essay and quiz competitions was a way to encourage and promote excellence in academics among girls.
“We are also doing this to make us visible to the public to know what we are doing. Thirdly, we are doing this to bring about more partnership between us and the ministry of education and other ministries also.”
Dr Oti said RAGA was borne out of her passion for girls to maximise their potentials “unhindered by gender” as she had experienced growing up as a girl.
The RAGA essay competition was won by Umar Esther Eniola of Baptist Senior Secondary School, Liberty Road, Ibadan. Adesoji Jasmine and Oluyide Timilehin both of All Saints College, Jericho, Ibadan. Lead City International School and All Saints College, Ibadan, emerged winners of the debate and quiz competitions, respectively.
Scholarship awardees included Mary Joseph of Our Lady of Apostles, Ibadan, Olajolo Oyindamola of Army Day School, Ibadan, and Itoro Paul Okokon of the University of Ibadan.
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