‘Govt should adequately cater for over 1.8 million illiterates in Oyo State’

Acting executive secretary of the Oyo State Agency for Adult and Non-Formal Education (Oyo AANFE), Ibadan, Mr Aderemi  Nathaniel Olakulehin, has said the government should adequately cater for the over 1.8 million illiterates in the state.

Olakulehin said we would continue to have dropouts from formal education clauses, no matter how beautiful the provision for the sector might be.

Olakulehin spoke in his welcome address at the 2020 International Literacy Day cum the graduation of adult learners from the agency, which held on Thursday, November 5, at the headquarters of Oyo AANFE), Ibadan, Oyo State.

He said if the goals of Education for All by 2020 were to be met, the non-formal education was a key factor that must be given due priority.

Olakulehin listed the challenges facing the agency as lack of money to pay facilitators, paucity of funds for vocational materials and equipment, lack of necessary advocacy, mobilisation and sensitisation for enrolment due to lack of funds, non-payment of Local Government Counterpart fund since 2014, among others.

Oyo State Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology, Mr Olasunkanmi  Aremu  Oleleye, while speaking at the event sponsored by the state government as the Chief Host on the theme “Literacy teaching and learning in the C OVID-19 crisis and beyond”, said  literacy was vital to development and  as well as a tool for daily activities in modern society.

Secretary to the State Government, Mrs Olubamiwo Adeosun, in her address on the occasion, said the Makinde-led administration recognised the importance of education as it was evident that every good thing depended on it.

Also speaking, a  Professor of Industrial Education and Training, Faculty of Education of the University of Ibadan, Professor Kehinde Kester,   advocated a model of ‘Each One Teach One or Each One Fund the Teaching of One’ as an appropriate model for teaching members of a community at this period of COVID-19.

One of the graduating female adults from Oyo AANFE, Mrs Olawumi Olaniran, a.k.a. Mama Quality, said, “I stopped schooling at primary six but was I determined to further my education. I heard about the Oyo AANFE on radio and I joined the programme. Before now, I could not read and speak English very well. But now I can speak English and even write in English.”

The event attracted many dignitaries like the immediate past executive secretary of the agency, Mrs  M.F. Bolarinwa, chairman, House Committee on Education, Oyo State Assembly, Honourable Oluwafowokanmi Oluwafemi, among others.

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