By Senator Iyiola Omisore
I have chosen to address the good people of Osun State on an issue that must touch the hearts of all indigenes of our dear State. I am convinced we all care about the future of our children and the continued survival of the State. Although this issue is clearly not the only one through which the Aregbesola-led APC administration has mortgaged the future of our State, it is in my view, the most important. It is the ‘Education of our children, a critical investment in our development and future.
Education, as we all know is the bedrock of development in any society, and the wisest investment any well-intentioned government can make. Qualitative education impacts on all sectors, and contributes to increasing life expectancy and assuring sustained economic development. It provides the platform for social, economic and technological advancement of any country or people. In the contemporary world where nations strive to institutionalize a “knowledge economy”, any state that toys with the education of its people will be left behind to stagnate in a condition of underdevelopment exemplified in ignorance and disease.
Most unfortunately, this is the sorry state the outgoing Governor Rauf Aregbesola of the APC will leave Osun state, come August 2014. Incalculable damage has been done to the education sector in Osun State by the implementation of policies with huge negative impact on infrastructure, quality of education, motivation of teachers and indeed an almost complete reversal of the hitherto good fortunes and track record of Osun state in education at all levels. I refer in specific terms to the following educational policies Aregebsola and his APC team have implemented in the past 4 years
Policy on schools reclassification and merger:
Education policy confusion was initiated with schools re-classification and consequent merger. Theuntenable justification for this policy is that it allows older siblings to support their younger ones in learning and in the school environment! Aregbesola, with total disregard of the existing national strategic directions and policies in education has re-classified schools in Osun state into Basic,Middle and High Schools and merged classes of students across Junior Secondary to Senior Secondary. This was done with a complete lack of understanding of the impact of these ‘uncommon’ and untested policies on infrastructure, teacher distribution, education quality as well as on access to schools by both students and teachers. This reclassification not only changed the class bands but also age bands in schools as well as the relevance of existing instructional materials and complement of teacher skills in each merged educational institution. A direct result of this is that incongruous schools and students were merged together. Aregbesola seeks to cook tomatoes and oranges in the one pot! The end-result of this confused policy has been mass protests by parents and students, several litigations by stakeholders in the state, religious crises within the newly classified schools, general instability and increased level of indiscipline in many of the newly merged schools.
There have been rampant cases of clashes and near-fatal amongst students of different religious persuasions. The case of what happened in Iwo Baptist High School is still fresh in our memories. The question we need to ask the Aregbesola-led administration is the reason for this ill-thought-out and poorly-conceived policy which has yielded a harvest of confusion and hardship for students and pupils who now have to walk long distances to get to their new schools.
The promise by the state government to provide buses to alleviate the suffering of students is at best another temporary fix that cannot be sustained. Will Aregbesola and his education advisors also purchase cars for teachers, administrators and support staff to get to school? All of these palliatives are at best a foolish attempt to continue to pour water into a leaking basket.
Policy on Common Uniform
As if the hardship created by the schools reclassification is not enough, he proceeded to rob salt on the sore feet of parents by decreeing a common uniform for all schools thereby robbing the schools of an important source of pride and identity which the state has enjoyed since it was part of the defunct Western Region.
Every high school student in Osun State now wears the same uniform and identity. It remains unclear what educational lessons or evidence has informed this curious policy. Schools identity are now confused and when you see our students you are unable to tell where they are from, be it forreward or admonition. Every pupil and student looks the same. This policy has no doubt opened the door to miscreants who now parade the streets in Aregbesola’s common uniform, wreaking havoc because of the confidence the anonymity this common new uniform policy offers to them.
Not only is this the case, uniforms can only be purchased from government! In an evolvingeconomy such as Osun Sate, the private sector should be encouraged to be strong partners with government. Argebesola’s government decides to the contrary, government is now tailor to Osun state schools. By introducing a common uniform, which can only be sewn by government through its garment factory, thousands of tailors and sowing mistresses have been denied their major source of productive enterprise and sustainable income. Poor parents were forced to purchase the common uniforms at exorbitant and non-competitive market prices for their wards. Government not only monopolizes the sowing of the uniforms, it monopolizes the distribution as well thereby creating more difficulties for parents who are truly struggling to send their children to school in these trying economic times, exaggerated by the financial recklessness of a judicial Governor. Another very insensitive policy in these hard times where the same government fails to pay salaries and pensions, and will not increase the wages of workers.
It is difficult to understand why a government will be so unfair to its people and so oblivious of the hardship it is inflicting on them, in a democratic dispensation.
Policy on the Use of Technology for Profit (Opon Imo)
By far, the most destructive and dangerous of Aregbesola’s education policies is the introduction of Opon-Imo (Tablet of Knowledge) now described as “Opon Aimo” (Tablet of Ignorance) by a majority of the people of the state. With the introduction of this “Poison”, Aregbesola has decisively taken education in Osun state backwards by about 20 years.
There is no doubt that the knowledge of ICT in the modern world is crucial for every person that yearns for an all-round education. However, possession of an android tablet cannot be a substitute for textbooks as available evidence in more developed societies has shown. More damaging to the psyche of our children is the fact that about two years down the line, you can count the number of students that have the device on your fingers. Although government promised to supply 150,000 pieces to schools, only 15,000 were received and a yet unverifiable number were actually distributed to the schools. It would appear that a higher number of photographs of ‘Opon Imo’ were distributed than the actual tablets itself!
Many of our schools did not receive up to twenty (20) pieces of the tablet. In fact, as at the time of this press briefing, the few pieces earlier distributed had been withdrawn from the students. Perhaps, the most destructive and clearly cynical aspect of this project is the fact that the contents of the Opon-Imo (Tablet of Knowledge) are such that any student who relies on the device for any external examination is unlikely to do well because most questions prepared for nearly all subjects are poorly constructed and invariably bear obviously wrong answers.
A few examples will suffice. Mathematics (for SS1 candidates)
In chapter one which is titled “Number base System”, out of 5 questions provided, 4 are either wrongly stated or the answers supplied are equally wrong. Same applies to chapter 2 titled “Modern Arithmetic” where questions 1 and 2 referred to diagrams that are not provided and many questions set in the chapter are not in anyway related to modular arithmetic.
In this chapter, out of 5 questions provided, 4 are wrong. Same applies to chapters 3 and 4. Many topics that the students are meant to learn in the mathematics curriculum are left out. A number of questions are incomplete and in many cases, questions set for the SS1 classes are repeated for SS2 and SS3 classes.
English Language questions are equally fraught with errors such as wrong spelling of words, wrong answers, poorly constructed questions etc.
This is the type of tablet that Governor Aregbesola has supplied to our schools as capable of imparting knowledge when all it can do is to impart something that is indeed worse than ignorance, the misinformed high school graduand, who has a certificate of education but yet is uneducated!
As a parent, I feel sad that a government in a democracy can introduce such a poisonous device to its own students. Clearly, no homework was done on the “Opon-Aimo” (Tablet of Ignorance). The motive of those who introduced it is obviously to make pecuniary gains. If it were not so,painstaking efforts would have been made to ensure that the questions set are error-free.
State of tertiary education
As if these were not enough, for the past four months, state-owned tertiary institutions have beencomatose with both academic and non-academic staff industrial action. Their demands are simple; please pay our wages, extend our retirement ages and stop diverting our pension contributions so that we are sure that in our old age our pensions can be paid. Valid requests from a workforce of democratic governance.
Osun state students and our young people are on the road, both appealing for action and peacefully demonstrating for it. A tragic diversion from their pathway to fulfilled aspirations, and to our collective effort to engage their productive hands in reversing the economic challenges that Osun state currently faces on account of the financial recklessness of the Aregbesola-led APC administration in the State. Rather than attend to this issues, I can authoritatively confirm that a few weeks ago, the students maltreated, beaten and then locked up. The Aregebsola-led administration is apparently insensitive to the democratic demand of accountability to its own people. It is difficult to understand how these policies can help us to fulfil both the short and long aspirations of the noble people of Osun State, a state that until now was renowned for excellence in education
Aregbesola and his misadventure in educational policy
The tragic consequence of this misadventure in the name of educational policy by Aregbesola, is the rising wave of indiscipline and cultism in secondary schools in Osun State and the dwindling standard of education in our schools. An eloquent testimony to the deleterious effects of Aregbesola’s policies in the education sector is the poor performance of our students in the recently released WAEC/NECO examinations where Osun State found itself in a distant 26th position out of the 36 states of the federation. Never has Osun state had it so bad in the area of education. An ‘uncommon’ experience of education in Osun state, brought on by an equal level of ‘uncommon’ irresponsibility in governance! What a poetic justice for the propaganda-driven government of Ogbeni!
The position of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) in Osun state is that Governor Aregbesola should immediately withdraw every piece of the poisonous Opon-Imo (Opon Aimo) which he distributed to our schools in order to save the future of education in the state and rescue our children from the pit of ignorance into which Aregbesola’s tablet has thrown them. This government has no option left than to take this honorable step and apologize to the people of the state for misleading and deliberately misinforming them on the Opon-Imo saga.
Restoring the Dignity of Education
We, on our part, will use every legitimate and lawful avenue to ensure that “foreigners” that do not mean well for our State no longer make our students guinea pigs and educational infrastructure unproductive poorly equipped show pieces. We shall reverse this unfortunate misadventure and its numerous negative impact on our children today and tomorrow.
Education is our priority and leads as first Cardinal Programme in our Rescue Mission Campaign. Restoration of the dignity of education in Osun State is pivotal to our future and to ensuring that the aspirations of parents and the dreams of our young people is fulfilled. Investing in education is investing in development and assuring tomorrow. It is the wisest investment we can make. In furtherance of this, the incoming PDP led administration commits boldly to restore the dignity of education, and the leadership role of Osun among the comity of states in Nigeria, and even beyond its shores.
The incoming PDP administration in Osun State, of which by the grace of God, and the goodwill of the people of Osun state, on the 9th of August 2014, I shall be Governor, will implement carefullythought out scaleable and sustainable strategies which will include among other interventions the following:
1. Return things back to Basics: Ensure compliance of primary and secondary education act of 2004; and provisions of the Universal Basic Education Scheme
2. Restore school structure and systems as obtainable in November 2011
3. Improve teacher quality, competencies and ratio
4. Strengthening the application of technology for teacher education, curriculum development and learning
5. Improve the quality of tertiary education through investment in infrastructure and establishment of institutional mentoring links within Nigeria, and with other institutions globally
6. Revive vocational, technical and adult education as integral components of the educational system
7. Maintain, support and sustain appropriate infrastructure and equipment for education
8. Dismantle monopoly in provision of educational infrastructure, its support and maintenance facilities
9. Enhance the learning environment for positive learning outcomes
10. Integrate the teaching of information and communication technologies, as well as the application of same technologies for both innovation in teaching techniques and learning
Our approach to development will integrated. It will be about our people and by our people. It will focus on developing viable human capital and further entrench the appropriate deployment of technology, not for profit as has been the case with Aregbesola’s government, but for learning and innovation. Evidence of best practices, not just imported but adapted to ensure local relevance and sustained success shall be our bedrock.
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Comments
We shall keep our promises. Education in the state shall be at a level and quality we also aspire for our children. If the Opon-Imo (Opon-Aimo) is as good as they want us to believe, why is it not being used in other APC States? For us to see the chicanery behind the bogus policies of Ogbeni in the education sector, even his government’s official statistics has exposed the barrenness of those policies. For example, the administration promised to construct 100 Elementary, 50 Middle and20 High schools. At the last count, it succeeded in constructing only 14 elementary (out of 100),15 middle (out of 50), and 9 High schools (out of 20) within a full tenure of 4 years. If this is nothing but abysmal failure, I wonder what else is.
Wise investment in education is what the PDP in Osun State offers and stands ready to deliver. Restoring the dignity of education is priority task of the rescue mission.
Gentlemen of the Press, I thank you for honoring our invitation and I will speak to you on other matters in the coming days.
*Senator Omisore is the Candidate of the PDP in the forthcoming governorship election in Osun.