The Ilesa Grammar School Old Students Association (ILEGSOSA) in Osun State on Monday frowned at the battered and shattered educational standard of the country and charged governments at all levels to speedily give adequate attention to the sector to prevent it from collapsing.
The association, which described education as a powerful and indispensable mechanism that could be used for the rapid transformation of knowledge in any given society, appealed to the concerned authorities to give the sector priority by investing more in it.
The National Chairman of the Old Students Association, Dr Obisesan Daramola, made the charge at a press conference to herald the 90th celebration of the school held at the school hall in Ilesa.
According to him, “That is human capital development. It is shameful that some children are still working on the street, unable to go to school; that should not happen at all. The government at all levels should prioritise education. Education, health, and security should be the priorities of every government.”.
” The country’s education should be given adequate attention because its quality has fallen. It is even worrisome that students now roam about the streets during school hours, and the current educational standard in the country now produces half-baked students compared to what was experienced in the past.
In his own speech at the occasion, the National Vice President and Chairman of the Planning Committee, Dr. Wale Bolorunduro, explained that all necessary arrangements had been made to make the event a colourful and classical one.
Dr. Bolorunduro, who explained that the celebration would be a weeklong one, stated that “the foundation of the secretariat donated by an ex-student, Pastor Enoch Adeboye, the General Overseer of the Redeem Christian Church of God (RCCG), would be laid.
He stressed that an endowment fund would be launched during the 90th celebration to enable the association to contribute more to the development of the school, while a set had built a multimedia vocational centre.
The National Vice President, who was the former Commissioner for Finance during the Rauf Aregbesola regime in the state, also disclosed that another set is trying to provide an ICT centre as part of efforts to make students of the school entrepreneurs from secondary school.
In his own remark, an outstanding media icon, Sola Osunkeye, who was also a product of the school, noted that no state is giving education 40 per cent cash backing, and that is why there are so many problems in the country.
He, however, appealed to the government to henceforth stop paying lip service to education if the sector is to be revived.
