Education in Oyo state: Does Mr. Governor know these?

Education in Oyo state: Does Mr. Governor know these?

Ben GEORGE

A look at the Oyo state free education under Governor Seyi Makinde

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The Oyo state governor, Engr Seyi Makinde, has demonstrated his devotion to unhindered access to education particularly in early life with his free education policy at public primary and secondary school levels in the state. But what has unfolded in the last seven and a half years is nothing but a cosmetic free education, a sham so to say. The kind of free education unfolded in the First Republic and Second Republic were almost flawless with provisions of massive infrastructure in schools such as erection of classrooms’ buildings, supply of quality chairs and desks, utilities like chalks, textbooks, payment of running grants etc.

However, the kind of free education foisted by Governor Seyi Makinde administration falls short of that; it grossly fails to meet the standard of the past years. It is only free education in name, mere rhetoric, to score some political point. Or perhaps the governor is unaware of how his lieutenants are executing his cherished free education policy! From my findings, textbooks (in selected subjects) and exercise books were distributed to students only in the first year of the administration; distribution of report cards have stopped and students rarely take report cards home now; furniture supply have become a thing of the past; no conscientious efforts at building classrooms’ blocks, even when windstorms wreck havocs managements are left to fend for themselves probably through parents and old students, no government effort to rebuild damaged structures.

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I even heard of an experience this year in Ogbomoso. Rainstorms blew off roofs and destroyed buildings in several schools, the matter was raised in the House of Assembly by the Majority Leader, Hon Sanjo Adedoyin, and a government team came to inspect the damaged structures. The affected schools’ principals being Omoluabis had to cough out fortunes, I learned, to host the team but since April or so, nothing is heard again.

Pabanbari, there is a murmur that the statutory running grant was not paid throughout last academic session (for the three terms) and the first term of a new session (2026/2027) is almost reaching the half mark. Yet principals are bound to run schools, how? With their salaries because utilities would have to be acquired – chalk, lesson notes, attendance register, timebook, schemes/diaries, gradebooks, prepare returns and vouchers, etc and repair critical damaged buildings, organize practicals, host visitors and so on.

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The public does not know all this and I believe Mr. Governor doesn’t know either. The only good aspect of his free education is the prompt payment of salaries and other entitlements as well as promotion. But the core of the sector, is mindlessly neglected. Meanwhile, the issue of promotion has even become problematic; it now attracts different payments to secure, unlike what operated in the past. Yet, it is not cleanly done, some eligible teachers will receive letters of promotion while some are not given without any explanation. Everything is now in shambles, covered in uncertainties. Needless agitation now pervades the education atmosphere. Different hawkish individuals have made incursions into the teaching system, in the name of this and that. Teachers complain of regular deductions in their salaries, without explanations, you get credited with a certain amount this month, next month it is different. Moreover, teachers on same salary scale now get paid different amounts every month because of all these frivolous deductions. The cheating is masked under different fictitious names with no one to complain to.

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Could this part of the reasons students are now growing more unruly, and taking pleasure in unleashing violence and terror on themselves and the communities and dropping out of schools? Their principals are daily faced with how to run the schools smoothly in the face of financial crunch, and other staff battle uncertain promotion issues and criminal deductions, so, the commitment inevitably suffers. It is suffering in silence.

In relation to this – indiscipline, does the governor also know of the extant rule that no teacher should cane students in schools again, thus perpetrating such attracts sanctions against the principal and the teacher who flouted the rule especially if there is laceration on the body of the student? The new directive is for erring students to be counselled or asked to pick litters or cut grasses.

Is the governor aware of how his free education is made to unfold?

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