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Moving Osun education from darkness to light

By Kola Omotunde-Young
24 June 2018   |   3:32 am
What i offer to you therefore can be termed, Government Unusual – a Government totally committed to unlocking the latent potentials of our people These were the words Aregbesola used in his booklet, ‘MY PACT with the people of the state of osun,’ which contained his ‘’Six–Point Integral Action Plan’’ which was presented to the…

Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, Governor State of Osun.

What i offer to you therefore can be termed, Government Unusual – a Government totally committed to unlocking the latent potentials of our people

These were the words Aregbesola used in his booklet, ‘MY PACT with the people of the state of osun,’ which contained his ‘’Six–Point Integral Action Plan’’ which was presented to the people of Osun during his electioneering campaign in year 2007.


‘’Promote Functional Education” is the fifthaction plan in this document with the vision to ‘’eradicate the frustration of youths caused by education that does not lead to employment.’’


As at November, 2010 when Aregbesola retrieved his mandate to govern the state of Osun, the situation in the Education Sector of Osun was marked with poor, dysfunctional, appalling, learning and teaching infrastructure across the State, non availability of adequate instructional materials, low morale of teachers, roughly dressed and malnourished pupils, poor monitoring and evaluation, low quality and dysfunctional Basic and Senior Secondary Education.


All of these were crowned with very poor performance of students in internal and external examinations.
 In order to address the challenges, an Education Summit was held in February, 2011.

A blueprint for the Education Sector was produced from, which radical and comprehensive policies and programmes were designed.

Government has since been implementing the blueprint.
 The modern, state of the art, world class infrastructure built by Aregbesola for the Elementary, Middle and High Schools have been applauded and commended by all commentators including even his detractors, as bold, unprecedented efforts to move education in Osun from darkness to light.


Not being able to defend the neglect and incompetence demonstrated in the seven years before Aregbesola, the detractors have continued to attempt to deceive and hoodwink the society by deliberately parading and spreading false, unsubstantiated, information that is not backed up by any credible evidence.


To ensure the truth is told and records are straightened for all to know, so that the public will no longer be misled by the shameless, who have no inhibitions in deliberately spreading falsehood, the Ministry of Education applied to West African Examinations Council to officially furnish us with performance results from 2006 to 2017 in the West African Senior School Certificate Examinations (WASSCE).


The results, official from WAEC, show that the best performance by students in Osun, for those with five credits including English and Mathematics, in the West African Senior School Certificate Examinations (WASSCE), in the five years before Aregbesola was 15.68 %.


With the focused, deliberate and purposeful intervention of the Government led by Aregbesola in the Education Sector, the State has achieved 284% improvement in the performance of students in same examinations from 15.68% in 2010 to 44.47% in 2017 examinations.


Not good enough yet, but it is a pointer to a better future based on the foundation laid by Aregbesola, which should be allowed to germinate to fruition with continuity, by those who share his vision.


It is a deep understanding of the flaw in the philosophy and foundation of our education that differentiates the government of Aregbesola from many of its predecessors.


For Aregbesola, an educated man must be a true Omoluabi – ‘’Honest, Courageous, Rational.

A cultural icon with Character, truly Yoruba (truly African, fluent in his/her mother tongue), International (comfortable in one or more international languages), Critical and Creative thinking, Knowledge – seeking, Productive, Problem- solving, Respects laws, rules and rights of others, Thrifty and Investing, Collaborative, Time Conscious, Responsible.’’


The vision of Aregbeola’s government is to make our schools, ‘’world class schools’’ that produce confident, matriculate-able students who are first class scholars, cultural icons and models of good character, innovation and competence – the true Omoluabi.

They will compete well with their counterparts anywhere in the world, excel and transform the African society positively.

Aregbesola‘s vision of functional Education that will help every child to find his/her purpose in life as an Omoluabi, irrespective of circumstances of birth is the path from darkness to light for our society.

State Of Osun Education Infrastructure


Radical and comprehensive policies and programmes which have been carried out include:


• Decentralisation of school administration and management through creation of three Education Districts and Establishment of Teachers’ Pension Office (TEPO) for more effective monitoring
These are headed by Tutor Generals/ Permanent Secretaries.


•Further decentralisation by creation of nine Basic Education Zones headed by Head Master Generals/ Permanent Secretaries

• School re-classification into Elementary, Middle and High Schools for improved management efficiency.


• Osun School Feeding and Health Programme (O-Meals); The world acclaimed programme being replicated nationwide.
O-Meals has served more than 300,000,000 meals in the last six years.

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