————Express worry over poor rating
From Lateef Dada, Osogbo
Bothered by the poor rating of Osun State in the public examination performance index, Governor Ademola Adeleke has disclosed readiness to hold an education summit to reposition the sector for better performance.
Adeleke has thereby appointed Oyesoji Aremu, a Professor of Counselling and Criminal Justice at the Institute for Peace and Strategic Studies, University of Ibadan, to chair the summit.
Speaking at a press conference in Osogbo on Friday, Aremu expressed displeasure that some of the recommendations made by Prof Wole Soyinka in 2011 were jettisoned for mostly political reasons, noting that though a lot has happened in the sector in the last twelve years.
He noted that the committee has received memoranda from different organizations and individuals, promising that justice would be done to come up with recommendations that would be of benefit to the state.
In his address, the Commissioner for Education, Hon Dipo Eluwole, expressed the displeasure of the state government over the moribund state of education in the state.
He said, “Available records have it that the State is rated as being the most poorly rated in the public examination performance index which puts Osun state among the last three in the nation for some time now.
“The state is also having the largest number of out-of-school children in southwest Nigeria and probably the least inadequate teacher-pupil-ratio.
“These are descriptions that were alien to the State education sector in the past because the founding fathers bequeathed a befitting education legacy to the State,” Eluwole said.
He said the summit will among others look into the collapse of school inspectors, inadequate number of teachers, deviant behavior of students, and other policies that will make schools and their environment child-friendly, conducive, safe, and motivating.
Responding to questions from journalists, Eluwole said the teachers employed by the former Governor Adegboyega Oyetola and disengaged by Adeleke’s administration would be allowed to reapply, assuring that the qualified ones would make it at the end of the exercise.
