BY TIMOTHY AGBOR, OSOGBO
Osun State Commissioner for Education, Folorunso Bamisayemi, on Friday, accused former governor of the state and Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, of giving false comment by saying that condition of education in Osun was poor.
Aregbesola had reportedly said he was pained by current happenings in Osun as far as development issues were concerned, adding that one of such cases was the poor state of education in the state.
Aregbesola said this when he bagged Life Time Achievement Award from the National Parent Teacher Association of Nigeria on Thursday.
He was quoted as saying, “Osun was ranked as one of the 10th largest economy in Nigeria, ranked as 2nd highest in schools enrolment/attendance, next to Lagos State with enrolment moving from 15 to 45, and later to over 65 per cent by the time I left.
“But sadly today, the situation has changed. And it pained me that the vision and capacity that we demonstrated in delivering services to the people have been arrested. I am only putting the records straight and not to castigate anybody.”
Reacting to the assertion made by the minister, Bamisayemi, said the administration of Governor Gboyega Oyetola has not destroyed education as claimed by Aregbesola, instead, the incumbent government had taken education out of the “deep hole” Aregbesola’s administration pushed it.
In a statement, the commissioner said, “the current administration has not destroyed education as alleged by him (Aregbesola). Rather, this administration has been working hard to improve the standard and quality of public education and take it out of the deep hole where it was when this administration came on board.
“We inherited an education system where principals, head teachers and teachers generally were heavily demoralized as a result of half salary payment by the then Aregbesola administration. We took over an education system where students lost interest in schooling as a result of incessant attacks and distruption of school activities by cultists, hoodlums and roughnecks posing as students undetected because of the single uniform policy of the previous administration.
“We were appointed to rescue a system where public schools performance in external examinations was below 20% if contributions of private schools are subtracted from the combined results released by WAEC from 2014 to 2018 after the former administration has been in charge for over 5 years and has committed over 25 billion naira.The combined matriculable percentage pass for those years are in the public space for all to see,” he said.
