State of Education in Oyo State - Ajimobi, What Legacy? by... Mudasiru Adebayo Salami

Oyo state government appears to have accepted that the state of public education in Oyo state is pathetic and ready(after 5 years of incumbent Governor's sojourn in office) to tackle the embarrassment on our hands.

For not only are the statistics being rolled out yearly by WAEC insulting to the collective intelligence of the state intelligentsia, the structure on ground also provides evidence of a clear decadent system: poor school infrastructure, low teachers' morale and poor academic environment is the picture you see on entering any government school in Oyo state. You then ask yourself the question - what has the present government been doing since accessing power in 2011? Little if anything!

Many including my humble self, gave the government benefit of the doubt that the initial challenges of the first term were just too enormous and that very soon Education and Health(to be dealt with in a separate post) will receive a better management. Alas, nothing significant happened except two things:

1. An educational summit during first term with no implementation strategy nor reports of achievements made based on that summit recommendations.

2. A knee jerk policy recommendation of 'selling' or 'management partnership'(what exactly does this mean?) of some of the public schools. The government has been evasive and chameleonic in her description of the policy so far. Announced without adequate consultation and at a time civil servants are wallowing in near-penury due to 6 months unpaid salaries, the natural result has been stiff resistance and absolute paralysis of public education in Oyo state. Today. while the children of the elites and political office holders attend private schools and write their prescribed examinations at the appropriate time without hindrance, the children of the masses and vulnerable have their schools shut down. NECO Examinations for JSS3 and SS3 students are caught in the mix with the affected students held in a limbo. You wonder is this a pacesetting leadership? How do we qualify the political sagacity and foresight of those that pretend to superintend Oyo state affairs?

For now the state yearns for a solution as what is presently available is embarrassing - no single public school in Oyo state is in top 50 of last WAEC ranking, Oyo state was TWENTY-SIXTH out of 36 states in the 2015 WAEC results and you can go on and on with the pathetic statistics. Oyo state has gotten it wrong at a point in time possibly the worst of such being the last 5 years riddled with recurrent teachers'strikes and near-zero intervention by the state government. What can be done to rescue the situation?

1. The state government should declare emergency in Public education with serious readiness to effect a lasting major change.

2. The state government should for now jettison the current plan to apportion schools to 'buyers' or 'partners'.

3. A more holistic view and discussion of the sector should be held with the new Commisioner for Education heading a task force to implement some urgent short term. medium term and longterm strategies. Regular consultations should be held with parents, teachers and all stakeholders possibly in a town hall meeting model.

4. Massive and transparent investment in education with government revenues, bilateral agencies(like the ongoing Nigeria-Japan intervention in selected public school - a drop in an ocean of need), education tax or levy - my suggestion of 1000 Naira per pupil was jerked up to 3000 Naira per pupil and billions already realised and NOT YET UTILIZED.

5. A short term intervention of converting 2 schools per local government to model schools with massive infrastructural development at the level of the first world - there are at least two good private schools in Oyo state that can be copied. Teachers in the model school can be given special training and new brilliant minds employed to help make the schools truly models with benchmarks and standards. Admission to these schools should be based on merit and for the best brains in each Local government at Common entrance examinationss. The goal should be to have at least half of these schools in the top 50 rating by WAEC within the next three years. Yes it is doable.

6. One hundred percent buy in of the one meal a day programme of the FG to boost morale and enrollment of students along with healthy nutrition.

7. Construction of standard public libraries at least 2 per each senatorial zone - I was a direct beneficiary of the State Elekuro Library and was thorougly embarassed when I made a mistake of taking my children to the Central Library at Dugbe sometimes ago. I felt like land should swallow me up after I have encouraged the kids that the central Library will definitely be maintained and there was almost NOTHING!

8. Periodic quality controls and inspection should be re-introduced with inspectorate divisions of Ministry of Education re-energised. Questions should be asked what are we doing right, where are the weaknesses and what remedies can we apply?

9. Teacher training and retraining is paramount for in the end, the quality of teachers determines the output from any school.

10. A longterm transparent plan to hand over selected schools to some missions who were original owners with viable plans to turn around such schools. Grants like the 6 billion Naira grant Gov Obi of Anambra provided for such venture should be considered for healthy take off.

10. Sen. Isiaka Abiola Ajimobi it is TIME TO WAKE UP!