Celebrating United Grammar School, Ode-Irele’s diamond jubilee

February 26, 1965, was a Friday. That day, almost exactly 60 years ago today, was a great day in Ode-Irele in the old Okitipupa Division of the Western region of Nigeria. A great school was born.

The epochal Friday in Ode-Irele in 1965, was just five days to the memorable Sunday on February 21, 1965, when American Civil Rights campaigner, Malcolm X was assassinated in the Audubon Ballroom, a Theatre and Ballroom, on Broadway in the Washington Heights neighbourhood of Manhattan, in New York. Today, the New York Ball Room and Theatre, Houses a Business and Technology Centre. Today in Nigeria, the United Grammar School in Ode-Irele, Ondo State, which was opened on Friday 26, 1965, has produced thousands of successful Nigerian professionals and exceptional men and women of great standing at home and beyond.

Our school, the United Grammar School, Ode-Irele, became one of the best secondary schools in the South West by the 1970s, within five years of its establishment. For more than a decade, the school, for was also the fastest-growing secondary school then, among the four early Secondary Schools in the old Okitipupa Division. The old Okitipupa Division, now comprising five of the local government areas namely Okitipupa, Irele, Ilaje, Ese-odo and Odigbo, had Manuwa Memorial Grammar School, Iju-Odo, Methodist High School, Okitipupa, Stella Marris College, Okitipupa and United Grammar School, Ode- Irele.

The four missionary Churches which established the United Grammar School were the Anglican, the Catholic, the Methodist and the Baptist. The Churches were passionate about the school from its earliest beginning; hence they funded the school generously. The audacious level of their funding was largely responsible for the rapid growth and popularity of the school.

By the middle of 70s, United Grammar School, had become the number one school for parents to bring their children to. It ranked with some of the best schools in the land back then, like Loyola, Ibadan Grammar School and Queens School Ede. Some parents from Lagos, Ibadan, Akure, Ondo town, Benin City, etc, those days, picked UGS, as their first choice for their children. The school had the best boarding house facilities which made the school the first choice of most parents.

The preference for the school by parents was so high that though it was conceived and started as a girls’ school, and it became co-educational by the second month of its establishment, the school always had more girls in its enrolment than boys for its first four years until 1969 when the school had an enrolment of 131 boys and 129 girls.

The history of our school as ably documented by the first Principal Mr T.O. Oyebade, is an instructive study of what dedicated and focused leadership can achieve against any odds, no matter how daunting. The school started with 44 girls in February 1965. But the maiden set saw 14 boys being admitted and resumed two months later on April 1, 1965.

The Christian Missionary proprietors of the school saw the need to accede to the pressure to make the school a co-educational school within the first two weeks of its take-off. They applied to the government for approval to become a co-educational school and remove the word “Girls” in its first registered name to change it to the name it has been now known as for the last 60 years. It is noteworthy that the applications to become co-educational and change the name of the school, were processed and approved within two months. It was within the same two months, that all arrangements needed were made, to ensure good boarding house facilities for the incoming boys.

It is noteworthy at this point to recognise that apart from the Churches providing massive funding to the school, the school was into agriculture. It produced many food crops and ran poultry, whose products it used to feed the students in the boarding house. At a point, the school also sold to the people in its community, the surpluses from the output of its agricultural farms too.

Sadly, and unfortunately, when politicians came with free education in 1979, they unknowingly destroyed this school and others like it by cancelling their boarding facilities and rendering them to be more of glorified primary schools, than the complete secondary schools they are supposed to be. Boarding house was the engine room of every secondary school those days. It enhanced spiritual development, academic development, physical development, metal development and social development.

On behalf of all old students of United Grammar School Ode-Irele, I am here calling on my indefatigable Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa, who is expected to grace the school’s Diamond Jubilee celebration, scheduled for February 25 – March 2, 2025, to showcase his administrative priorities for the state, especially in the area of education, to please return all the schools owned by the Christian missionary churches back to their owners for better management and funding.

It is already obvious today, that our governments which could not run these schools well yesterday, when the economy was more buoyant, will only be finding it increasingly more difficult to run any great number of schools in the near future. Imagine, if not as a results of the efforts of the old students, refurbishing and renovating the school, there will be nothing to celebrate today.

In that near future, our governments will most likely be finding it difficult to fund the running of even the public schools they have established today. They will therefore definitely find it even much more difficult to combine running those public schools with our old missionary schools in a tomorrow that is not that far at all, when the increasing population will begin to make even more serious demands on the increasingly shrinking resources of the government for equally important needs of the people, like health care facilities.

I plead to our governor, sir, please return the schools seized by the military from the religious missions. It will not only relieve the state government of some burden, but it will additionally, create healthy rivalry and competition between our schools which will ultimately, be healthy for the education of our children. Let there be competition between and among government-owned public schools, and privately-owned ones, including schools formerly owned by the religious missions in Ondo State.

l want to encourage my governor to emulate Lagos State, by returning the old mission schools to their owners to raise the educational standard of the state. Let the government pay the salaries of the teachers and other staff engaged by these schools only.

Ayela is a journalist, based in Lagos.