The Ogun State Government says it has embarked on “radical decongestion” of public schools, listing 511 public secondary schools to be converted to model colleges in the state.
The government said it had begun the initiative with 42 flagship schools as model colleges, serving as the first phase with a view to raising the standard of education and encouraging talented pupils in public schools in the state.
The Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology in Ogun State, Prof. Abayomi Arigbabu, said this at a media chat held in Abeokuta on the government’s scorecards in the education sector.
The Professor of Mathematics also explained that there is 120 percent increase in running cost for public primary and secondary schools in the state.
Arigbabu said the government has rehabilitated over 956 schools; abolished all forms of levies in public schools; approved N200 million as an Education Trust Fund for the development of Infrastructure in State Owned Tertiary Institutions among others.
He said “We have compiled a list of all schools that needs intervention and by the end of this. We have renovated 960 schools and we have supplied over 2,5000 tables and chairs to reduce and cushion the effects of the shortage of furniture in our schools.
“We have also upgraded and recategorize our schools, this is a new initiative in Ogun state which we call the Flagship school initiative.
“This initiative means that we are not starting model colleges from the scratch but we want to turn our colleges into model colleges. Where we are going is all the 511 secondary schools in Ogun state will better be model colleges.
“Now we have 42 of those schools, we want to solve the problem in our education sector. The 42 flagship schools are spread across the three senatorial districts of the state and to enter the school, there is usually a screening test.
“We have started systematically working on the Flagship schools with the standard of candidates to enter the schools, quality of teachers and also in terms of quantities and the decongestion of the population of those schools. Decongestion of class population is one of our goals in Ogun state. In our flagship schools, there is no classroom that is more than 60 pupils.
“To achieve this, we have given ourselves a six years goal and except we establish more schools and build more classrooms, we cannot achieve this goal and where we are going is to have a maximum of 40 pupils in a class.”
