OGUN BEEFS UP SECURITY IN SCHOOLS

  

Determined to ensure that the ugly cases of kidnapping of students by bandits in some parts of the country does not occur in the State, the Ogun State Government has given approval for the recruitment of security men to beef up security in all its schools across the State.

The State Governor, Prince Dapo Abiodun made this known while addressing members of the House of Representatives' Committee on Basic Education, led by its Chairman, Prof. Julius Ihonvbere, who paid him a courtesy visit in his office at Oke-Mosan, Abeokuta.

Governor Abiodun said as a responsible administration, "I have approved recruitment of security men in all our schools, because we do not want to be reactive on the issue of security. We want to ensure that not only our children are safe, but their teachers also".

Abiodun also declared that his administration had invested so much to reposition the education sector, but would still not relent in this regard, revealing that about 600 schools would be rehabilitated across the State, to further provide conducive environment for teaching and learning before the end of his first term in office .

"We are also in the process of awarding contract for the construction of 60,000 furniture, so that our children can sit comfortably while learning", he explained.

The State’s helmsman who noted that an Education Trust Fund has been created, from which a certain percentage would be deployed to further develop the sector, added that basic education would continue to receive priority as a Committee has been put in place to monitor and evaluate projects being executed with grants from the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC).

Speaking earlier, Chairman of the Committee, Prof. Ihonvbere, lauded the State for paying its 2018, 2019 and 2020 counterpart fund and its effort to ensure quality, functional and technology-driven educational policy, pointing out that the State still has about N2.7bn to access from UBEC.

Prof. Ihonvbere, while saying that the Federal Government has so far spent about N375bn on basic education in the last 10 years, maintained that his Committee was in the State as part of its oversight function to see what it has been able to do with the UBE grants, identify best practices, as well as lessons which other States could learn from.