Executive Chairman of the Oyo State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), Dr Nureni Adeniran, has said policies of the Governor ‘Seyi Makinde-led administration greatly helped to improved the standard of education in the state.
He added that the policies have also helped to reduce infrastructure deficit in the basic education sector, covering primary and junior secondary schools.
Adeniran stated this on Wednesday, while featuring on the Omituntun 2.0 Inter-Ministerial Briefing held at the Governor’s Office Briefing Room, Secretariat, Agodi, Ibadan.
The Oyo SUBEB chairman maintained that the administration has been able to improve the quality of education through the massive training of teaching and non-teaching staff members, recruitment of thousands of teachers, construction/renovation of classrooms and procurement of school furniture, among others.
He maintained that improvement in quality resulted in increased school enrolment, with thousands of parents even withdrawing their wards from private schools to enrol them in public schools in the state.
According to the Oyo SUBEB chairman, Governor Makinde started the task of repositioning the basic education sector in the state in 2019.
He noted that, in his first four years of office, the governor promptly paid UBEC counterpart funds for 2019, 2020 and 2021, enabling Oyo SUBEB to embark on different physical and human development programmes, which uplifted the basic education sector in the state.
Adeniran maintained that the Board conducted training programmes for 13,859 teaching and non-teaching staff members, constructed 289 blocks of classrooms, 60 model schools and renovated another 229 classrooms.
According to him, Oyo SUBEB also procured 22,962 desks and benches, 1,189 teachers’ furniture, sank 138 boreholes and also procured 33 motorcycles, 30 desktop computers and 33 digital tablets, among other efforts.
The SUBEB chairman also lauded the administration’s effort in the area of reducing the number of out-of-school children in the state, as, according to him, out-of-school-children numbering about 60,000, have been returned to the classrooms.
“There is no gain-saying that the vision of the Governor ‘Seyi Makinde administration on the basic education sub-sector to have a very negligible number of out-of-school children in the state, is gaining momentum on a daily basis,” he said.
The Oyo SUBEB boss also spoke on how the government’s efforts have improved education during the Omituntun 2.0.
He said: “The state government has also graciously paid the counterpart funds for 2022 and 2023 to complement the released matching grants from the Federal Government through UBEC for the two years, which amounted to the sum of ₦2,600,237,314.29 only.”
Adeniran explained that Oyo SUBEB has got approval to execute projects in public basic schools across the 33 local government areas of the state.
These, he said, included construction of 41 blocks of classrooms, seven perimeter fences, 30 boreholes, procurement of 5,828 pupils’ desks and benches, 473 teachers’ tables and chairs, 910 sports equipment, as well as the renovation of 60 blocks of classrooms.
The Oyo SUBEB chairman added that, apart from the Board interventions, the state would also embark on another massive construction/renovation of classrooms through a reward fund it got for its involvement in the Better Education Service Delivery for All (BESDA) Programme, which sought to reduce the number of out-of-school children.
He said: “All the states that benefited in the BESDA Programme were rewarded with funds and His Excellency, Governor ‘Seyi Makinde, decided and insisted that the reward should be utilised for the provision of infrastructure in public primary schools in the state.
“To this end, the Board has rolled out infrastructural projects which will soon be executed in the public primary schools in all the 33 local government areas of the state. This will go a long way to improve both infrastructure and academic activities of these benefiting schools.”
He said the projects would include the construction of 28 blocks of classrooms, renovation of 29 blocks of classrooms, construction of 4-compartment toilet with deep-well, sinking of 16 boreholes with tank and tank-stands and the procurement of 2,922 desks and benches and 182 teachers’ tables and chairs.
Adeniran also noted that the administration recruited 5,600 teachers and 80 caregivers to address the shortage of teachers in the 2,508 public primary schools in the state.
“I wish to reiterate that the recruitment has gone a long way to improve the learning outcome in all the public primary schools across the state through academic performances and other extra-curricular activities,” the Oyo SUBEB chairman said.
He maintained that the recruitment of new teachers has led to improved standard of education.
“The situation is changing because we have newly-recruited teachers that have better orientation, that dress very well, that are more accustomed to the digital world, and so on and so forth,” he added.
He added that the government has also introduced different policies to improve teaching and learning, training and capacity-building for teachers and other sorts of training.
