JCI Ibadan Elite adopts school, renovates classroom blocks

Pupils of  the Seventh Day Adventist Primary School, New Ife Road, Ibadan, had more to cheer for recently when two blocks of classrooms renovated by the Junior Chamber International, Ibadan Elite, was handed over to the Oyo State government.

The classrooms had been in a state of disrepair before JCI’s intervention, and represented what an ideal classroom and study environment should not be, thereby posing serious dangers for the pupils of the school.

Apart from the renovation of the classrooms, the school’s perimeter fence had also collapsed and exposed the pupils to the risk lurking on the ever-busy road, but JCI raised the fence to an extent that prevented pupils from running onto the road.

Expressing happiness while welcoming guests at the handover ceremony, the head teacher of school, Mrs Oladeji Funmilola, said not just the teachers but also the pupils were happy at the new look of their classrooms.

She also called on the state government to provide the school with desks, which, according to her, were largely lacking.

Chairman of Oyo State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), Nureni Adeniran, who led a team from the state Ministry of Education, thanked JCI  for coming to the aid of the pupils and for helping the state government.

Education is the bedrock of development in any society and should be “the responsibility of all,” Adeniran said.

While emphasising that the state government was doing its very best to ensure schools in the state were given a facelift, he decried the magnitude of the infrastructural decay the current administration met on ground in schools,  saying  it would take some time for all the schools to be fixed amidst paucity of funds.

“Even if the entire budget of government is dedicated to education, it would not still be enough,” he said, but the Nigerian Tribune could not independently verify the claim.

He charged other non-governmental organisations to emulate JCI, through playing significant roles in the development of not just the education sector but the entire state.

Speaking to Nigerian Tribune after the ceremony, the 2020 President of JCI Ibadan Elite, Oluwakemi Irinoye, described the project as the first phase and promised that further phases would take place.

According to her, “there are eight blocks in the school and we are turning six into better classrooms, one to a library and the other to an eating area for the pupils.”

Irinoye said the project was propelled by the need to make the learning environment conducive and to give the pupils better foundation.