Aregbesola: Celebrating Testimonies of Six Years of Rescue Agenda By Inwalomhe Donald
By contrast to those who left Osun state in ruins, Aregbesola is the first Governor to have launched a RESCUE AGENDA for a state that was moribund when he came to the helm of affairs six years ago. There is hardly any family in Osun State today that has not been directly affected by the Aregbesola administration’s projects, RESCUE AGENDA such as O’YES, O’REAP, O’CLEAN, O’SCHOOL and attempts to turn the state into the economic hub of the Southwest. It is almost 6 years that Osun state governor, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola has been steering the affairs of the state. He was returned to office in November 27, 2014 for a second term. So many things can be said to have be achieved by Ogbeni’s 6 year old administration in the state. In order to address the falling standard of education in Osun State, Governor Aregbesola set up educational programme charged with the responsibility of resuscitating the sector and rescuing it from total collapse. Osun State under Aregbesola has been on a steady pedestral towards all-round economic growth and infrastructural renewal in the last 6 years. Virtually every sector is feeling the impact of the strategic planning of the administration, a development that is fast attracting foreign direct investments into Osun State.
Only a few aspects of the RESCUE AGENDA can be touched upon here, but, the government of Osun State had taken this as the guiding principles of the administration. In other words, this is not a government flying blind, it has a compass. Two components of the agenda are worthy of mention and notice: The purpose of Rescue Agenda is to restore Osun State to a peaceful and secured state; to speedily unite the diverse people of Osun State; and to urgently transform the state in order to guarantee its sovereignty and sustainability, and ensure the wellbeing of its citizens. Governor Aregbesola thinks globally and acts globally. There are two global education concepts that Governor Aregbesola has introduced in developing Nigerian educational system: the concepts of OSUN SUKUK FUND FOR EDUCATION AND OSUN SCHOOL FEEDING PROGRAMME that every Nigerian must study and cherish. The Osun State HGSFHP, now known as Osun Elementary School Feeding and Health Programme (O-MEALS), commenced as a pilot programme of the Home Grown School Feeding and Health Programme (HGSFHP) introduced through the Universal Basic Education (UBE) 2004 Act. The programme was designed to provide a minimum of one meal a day to each primary school pupil in all 1,378 public primary schools in Osun State and providing a Direct Employment: Food Vendors; women who cook and serve students are 3,007 workers. Indirect Employment: farmers, food commodity suppliers, transporters, sundry handlers: 500,000 workers. The programme costs the state N3.6billion annually. The Federal Government enacted the school-feeding programme as one of the rights of every Nigerian school-child under the UBE Act of 2004. The section of the Act that deals with meals, Section 3 (1), reads, “The services provided in public primary and junior secondary schools shall be free of charge.” Section 15 (1), titled “Interpretation”, states that “‘Services’ that should be provided free of charge are books, instructional materials, classrooms, furniture and free lunch.” This has not been implemented in many places. In 2005, the Home Grown School Feeding (HGSF) programme of the federal government was piloted in 14 states, including Osun State. By 2016, the programme had collapsed in other states leaving only Osun State as the only state in Nigeria today that is implementing the progragramme.
Osun school feeding programme has increased enrolment and retention of pupils; improve nutritional and health status of pupils; address specific micronutrient deficiencies in school-age children for better school performance; alleviate hunger and malnutrition; stimulate job creation, local food production and boost income of local farmers; reduce poverty and stimulate development of small and medium scale anterprises.
The Aregbesola administration came into office on November 27, 2010. The government inherited almost collapsed education system characterized by dilapidated school buildings and filthy environment , roughly dressed and malnourished pupils, shortage of instructional materials , high regime of school fees in the state tertiary institutions , poorly motivated teachers with low morales all resulting in abysmally poor performances in both internal and external examinations.
To revamp the sector the government immediately convened an Education Summit chaired by Nobel Laurete, Prof. Wole Soyinka in February, 2011. All stakeholders in education were in attendance . The summit came up with recommendations which formed the basis of the policies and reforms that were put in place as follows:
Decentralization of education sector administration and management through Creation of three (3) Education Districts and appointment of Principals as Permanent Secretary/ Tutor General – Creation of Teachers’ Establishment and Pensions Office (TEPO) and appointment of Permanent Secretary for the office. Reclassification of the school structure and system into Elementary, Middle and High schools in line with international best practices and for effective teaching and learning. – School infrastructure development through construction of state-of-the-art schools across the state. The program aims at building 100 elementary schools, 50 middle schools and 20 high schools.
Presently, 20 elementary and 22 middle schools have been completed and put into use. 8 high schools have also been completed while 3 others are at various advanced stages of completion. Under the government school infrastructural renewal program through the SUBEB, old and dilapidated school buildings are being refurbished to make them look as good as new. Indeed, a total of 1,694 classrooms have been refurbished, renovated and rehabilitated in the existing elementary, middle and high schools. This provides accommodation for a total of 84,700 pupils at 50 pupils per classroom. We have also provided more than 100,000 desks and chairs, toilets and boreholes. In fact the school environments are becoming more decent and conducive for effective teaching and learning.
– The State in readiness for the basic education support by the World Bank and other multilateral bodies has prepared a 10-year Strategic Plan and 3-year Basic Education Sector Plan and operational strategies to be used at further improving the education sector. To get community involved in school governance, the state has launched a 15000-member community based school management bodies to manage Elementary schools ( Community Based School Management Committee), Middle schools ( Community Based School Management Board ) and High schools ( Community Based School Management Council ) in the State.
Abolition of practice whereby students made and carried own furniture to school. Instead government embarked on massive supply of furniture to all public schools and this is still on-going. In 2014 alone government committed a whopping sum of #2.2 billion to its furniture supply project .
Repackaging of the Home Grown School Feeding Program inherited from the previous administration and re-christening it as Osun Elementary Feeding and Health Programme, (O-Meals ). The objective of the program is to improve the mental and physical development of pupils as well as increase in school enrollment among other goals.
– Supply of new design of school uniform to students. To maintain unique identity and in line with best practices, the government introduced new school uniform for all public school students in the three categories of elementary, middle and high schools. At the start government provided 750,000 pairs of these uniforms free for all pupils/students. The uniform is being produced by the Omoluabi Garment factory in Osogbo and sold to pupils/students at subsidized rates.
– Provision and supply of computer tablets (Opon Imo ) to high school students in the state to democratize education and make learning and teaching more pleasurable through the use of ICT.
– Provision of Scholar Buses to ease transportation of students to and from school.
– Supply of Instructional Materials and Teaching Aids to Schools with expenditure of about N500,000,000.00 to date.
– Payment of External Examination fees for WASCE and NABTEB since inception in 2010 to date amounting to expenditure of over #2 billion.
– Training and Retraining of Teachers through periodic training programmes by Osun State University and other bodies. UNIOSUN conducted training for 5,000 teachers since 2012.
– Reintroduction of Extra-curricular activities to Public Schools culminating in the first Omoluabi school debate which produced Master Abeeblahi Ayodele who had a one- day privilege with Mr Governor at work.
– Introduction of O-Calisthenics to complement teaching and learning of physical education in schools.
– Payment of Enhanced bursary to students in the State of Osun in all tertiary institutions in the country with new rates of N10,000.00, N20,000.00 & N100,000.00 for Colleges of education/ Polytechnics/Humanities & Social sciences in Universities, Medical & Law students in Universities and special grants to law school students respectively as against N2,000, N3,000 and N10,000 respectively.
– Sponsorship of ninety-eight (98) Osun State University (UNIOSUN) Medical Students to Ukraine with over N163,611,458.00 spent excluding other miscellaneous expenses in the first year, 2012 and N 68,445,464.00 in the second year, 2013. The figures for 2014, 2015 and 2016 are N64,215,800.00 , N75,543,750.00 and N88,600,000.00 respectively.
– Payment of increased running cost and examination grants to public schools;
In Primary school ( now Elementary school ) from N200-600 per school per month to N400 per child per term totaling average of N131 million per term while in Secondary school from N150 per student per term to N550 per student per term totaling average of N142 million per term. This translates to expenditure of average of N856 million per annum as against N125 million by the immediate past administration.
Downward Review of School fees and non discriminatory school fees regime in the State owned Tertiary Institutions. OSUN is one of the states in Nigeria that operates non- discriminatory school fees regime for indigenes and non indigenes.
– Subvention to Tertiary Institutions to cushion the effects of reduction in School fees. Government bears the full burden of fees reduction in its tertiary institutions through payment of annual subventions of over N200 million.
-The administration took a number of measures to address the dearth of teachers in specific subject areas and general redistribution of teachers within the state.
Some of these include recruitment of over 12000 Teaching and non teaching staff between 2011-2013 alone by SUBEB and TEPO. Over 6,000 O-YES cadets with teaching qualification were deployed to teaching service in 2014/2015 as well as 251 civil servants with teaching qualifications in 2016.
– Promotion of Teachers for improved welfare and motivation
TEPO processed and promoted 3,631 teachers in 2010/2011, 2,879 in 2012 and 1,929 in 2013/2014. SUBEB also processed and promoted 6,777 in 2010 & 2011, 791 in 2012 and 1,050 in 2013/2014.
– Elongation of Teachers Career prospect for graduate primary school teachers from GL.14 to GL.16 with a total of 474 teachers as first beneficiary.
– Establishment of OSUN Education Quality Assurance and Morality enforcement Agency. In its efforts to frontally address the issue of gross indiscipline in the schools towards ensuring improved students’ performance, government has set up a full fledged agency to scale up monitoring, inspection and quality assurance duties in public schools in the state.
When Governor Aregbesola adopted Sukuk, an Islamic bond to help the state execute its educational projects, his critics both at the state and federal levels were calling for his head. Many said it was part of his ploy to islamize Osun State. Not quite long, the governments of United Kingdom, Nigeria, some state governors in Nigeria and other countries also stated their resolve to obtain Islamic bond, Sukuk to execute government projects. With this calibre of governments following suit to obtain Sukuk, it is now crystal clear that Aregbesola is not just a leader, but a leader that set positive pace globally. On the 30th of August, 2016 President Mokammadu Buhari on a one day visit to Osun State commissioned a multi Million naira Osogbo Government High School one of the high schools built with sukuk fund as part of the activities marking the 25th anniversary of the creation of the state. For details of Osun sukuk projects go to www.osunsukukprojects.com. The coordinator of the National Home Grown School Feeding programme, Abimbola Adesanya, had led to Osun State, a national team which came to understudy the Osun State school feeding programme, O’ Meal in June, 2016. Adesanya commended Osun state for what she described as the ingenious way it has moved the programme from what it was originally to an enviable one. She said: “National Home Grown School Feeding programme is part of Federal Government’s effort to uplift the indigent out of poverty in the country.” Osun State under Governor Aregbesola started implementation of school feeding since 2012 which Federal Government could not do. As President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration proceeds with its social investment programmes, the Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, SAN, has disclosed that the government will not be importing food to implement its School feeding programme just like what Governor Aregbesola did in Osun State.
OSUN SCHOOL FEEDING PROGRAMME
THE Aregbesola administration has completely overhauled the Osun State O-MEALS school-feeding programme launched on April 30, 2012 and being implemented in all the 1,378 public primary schools in the state till date. The government endorsed and signed the Osun Elementary School Feeding Transition Strategy Plan with representatives of the Board of Partnership for Child Development (PCD), Imperial College, London, on November 22, 2012. Of the 13 original pilots, the State of Osun is the only state currently implementing the programme. But the government has since 2012 redesigned and scaled up the programme considerably.
Osun School feeding scheme ‘boost to food security, jobs’. The Osun State School Feeding scheme has been praised as an important strategy for food and nutrition security. Special Adviser, Zone A Affairs, Niger State, Alhaji Aliyu Takuma, stated this during a visit to Osun state and TUNS Farms Nigeria Limited, a poultry firm. He said the Osun Elementary School Feeding and Health Programme (O-MEALS), formerly Home Grown School Feeding Programme (HGSFP), had brought the much-needed change to youth/child empowerment. According to him, the programme offers guidance on how to design and implement large-scale sustainable school feeding that meets standards.
OSUN SUKUK FUND FOR EDUCATION
Osun State raised a sukuk bond worth N10 billion (some $62 million) from the capital market to fund educational development – the first of such by Africa’s biggest economy. Governor Aregbesola is aware that Islamic financial instruments such as sukuk have been used to finance infrastructure projects in countries like Malaysia and Indonesia, and in the Middle East, and could attract investors from such countries.
The funds were used to finance construction of education projects, among other development initiatives with which Governor Aregbesola hopes to lay a solid foundation for the future of the state. Eleven High Schools with a total of 720 classrooms are at various stages of completion across the state. Two other High Schools are proposed for construction in Osogbo to accommodate the total population of high school students in Osogbo metropolis. There are 11 schools financed by the sukuk bond. The bond is exclusively for high school development.
The High Schools are: Wole Soyinka High School, Ejigbo, Ataoja High School, Osogbo, Fakunle Unity High School, Osogbo, Oduduwa High School, Ile Ife, Ila High School, Ila-Orangun, Adventist High School, Ede, Iwo High School, Iwo, Akinorun
High School, Ikirun and Ayedaade High School, Ikire. For details of Osun State Sukuk projects go to www.osunsukukprojects.com to see eleven wonders of Governor Rauf Aregbesola.
Recounting some of his achievements in education sector, Aregbesola said his government has successfully provided e-Learning tablets (Opon Imo) for final year high school studebts in the state just as free school uniforms for pupils in public school were provided. The Governor explained that the middle school, like the others building in the state, has the maximum capacity for 1000 pupils, 28 classrooms, an ICT room equipped with 30 computers, 24 toilets for pupils and teachers, three head teachers/principals’ office, one staff room, one facility manager office, a multipurpose hall, food court, library, sick bay, security/reception gatehouse and recreation zone.
He disclosed that his government since inception has been building a total of 170 state of the art schools with 100 of them at elementary, 50 middle schools and 20 high schools, saying out of these, 14 elementary schools, 15 middle schools and 11 high schools have been completed. “As at today, Osun has completed no fewer than 50 of such mega schools across the state that has already been put to use by Osun pupils without the PDP’s imaginary “high fees”. “Which one of the schools such as Anthony Udofia Government Elementary School, Salvation Army Government Middle School, Adventist Government High School, Ede, Ansar-ul-Deen Elementary School, Isale Osun, Osogbo or any other school has become a “high fee paying” school since their commissioning?” Mr. President came and he was enthusiastically welcome by all the people of Osun. He was pleasantly surprised by the landmark and enviable achievements of Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola in the educational sector through his numerous interventionist initiatives.
Inwalomhe Donald, public affairs analyst writes from Benin City, Edo State(inwalomhe.donald@yahoo.com
