Governor of Oyo State, ‘Seyi Makinde, says his administration will continue to use data, science and logic to arrive at the best decisions that will positively affect the people of the state.
The governor stated this while commissioning a model school building at the St. Paul’s Anglican Basic School, Okutapemo, Iseyin, to commemorate his second anniversary in office.
A statement by the Chief Press Secretary to the governor, Mr. Taiwo Adisa, quoted the governor as saying that his administration has paid UBEC counterpart funds of N1.51billion for 2019 and 2020.
The governor also inaugurated the Oyo State Agribusiness Development Agency (OYSADA) headquarters and launched the Youths Entrepreneurship in Agribusiness Project (YEAP) training for youths at the OYSADA Complex, Saki.
While speaking at the Iseyin venue of the model school building, Makinde maintained that the building is one of 26 such projects completed in the last one year across all zones of the state.
He explained that his administration completed over 300 projects in the education sector in its first year in office and has added over 300 projects in the second year.
He added that the government has also equipped hundreds of schools with furniture, textbooks and notebooks.
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The governor maintained that through scientific thinking, data and logic, the government has been able to reduce that infrastructure deficit in the education sector by building and renovating more schools and providing furniture materials and equipment.
He added that the governor has also plugged the hole in school enrolment, with the return of 54,000 out-of-school children to the classrooms.
He said: “When we looked at the data for education after we got into office two years ago, two things stood out. We had a huge number of out-of-school children. We had the highest number of out of school children in South western Nigeria.
“Even those who were in school lacked proper facilities and a conducive learning environment.
“So, we had to come up with solutions that would address these challenges. One of the things we noticed immediately was that the number of out-of-school children was a symptom of a bigger problem: The problem of poor funding. So, one of the first things we did was to reverse the trend of poor budgetary allocation to education. “We revised the budget we met and increased allocation to education from about 3 per cent to 20 per cent.
“And when we made our own first budget, we allocated over 20 per cent to education, which surpassed the UNESCO-recommended 15-20 per cent. For the past two years, this has remained the standard. Education gets over 20 per cent of our budgetary allocations.
the children access to education.
Earlier, the chairman, Oyo State Universal Basic Education Board, Dr. Nureni Adeniran, said that the model school building has 20 classrooms, head-teachers’ office, library, sickbay, computer room, assembly hall, 16 toilets, 29 sets of teachers’ furniture, 285 pairs of pupils’ furniture, functional borehole with two tanks and stand, fence.
Similarly, the Oyo State Coordinator of the Universal Basic Education Commission, Dr. Lydia Gbagi, hailed the Makinde government for the laudable project, describing it as unprecedented.
She added that Oyo State has accessed all its funds with UBEC by paying its counterpart funds up to date, commending the government for taking great interest in education.
At the OYSADA Complex, the Executive Adviser to the Governor on Agribusiness and the Director-General of OYSADA, Dr. Debo Akande, said the YEAP training will develop selected beneficiaries in areas of Agribusiness enterprise development spread across the five regions of Oyo State.
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