Three former students of Ondo Boys High School (OBHS), Ondo State have written a book to celebrate their alma mater’s centenary.
They are: Prof Ropo Sekoni (Class of 1962), Prof. Festus Adesanoye (Class of 1963), and Dr. Orobola Fasehun (Class of 19640.
They launched the book titled: “One Century of Ondo Boys’ High School: The History of Nigeria’s First Community High School” at an elaborate event that featured many old boys and distinguished guests at NECA House Alausa, Lagos on Thursday last week.
The three former students said they wrote the book because the first three oldest secondary institutions in the country in Ibadan, Abeokuta and Ijebu Ode, also had books on their history.
The occasion provided an opportunity for the former students to reflect on the good old days of public basic and secondary education in Nigeria, when juxtaposed with its sorry state today.
Leading the talk was Sekoni, a retired professor of English and Comparative Literatures at Lincoln University, United States.
Speaking on the topic: ‘’Rebooting secondary education”, Sekoni, also a columnist with The Nation, lamented that the core values that made the aforementioned sub-sectors tick in the past, have long lost their steam.
‘’Most of the values relevant to promotion of education 100 years ago in Ondo and other Nigerian communities do not seem to exist today, not only in Ondo but also across Nigeria,” Sekoni further lamented.
According to him, such values include: commitment to acquisition of new knowledge, commitment to egalitarianism, provision of adequate infrastructure to meet the needs of teachers and learners and commitment to quality assurance or high standards, as well as teachers/students motivation.
Sekoni said OBHS was established with the assistance of community leaders.
He said things ran smoothly until the government took over the school. Sekoni said the government recruited more teachers without plans to pay them regularly, a situation that affected teachers’ morale and forced them to look elsewhere.
‘’Infrastructure was provided by community leaders of means to house the school until community members across the economic spectrum were able to make contributions to build a permanent place in the town, with classrooms, laboratories and even staff quarters,” Sekoni said.
Sekoni challenged governments to wake up from their slumber, and rededicate themselves to quality and pre-tertiary education for children of school age, as this is the only way to tackle the rot in the system.
‘’If every part of the federation is able to provide free and compulsory pre-tertiary public education endowed with conducive infrastructure, modern teaching and learning tools, qualified teachers, academic quality and role for local management of schools, we will have rebooted the country’s education,” he said.
Also, a former chairman of Onigbongbo Local Government Council Development Area (LCDA), Mr Idowu Obasa, urged the government to wake up to its responsibility in providing infrastructure for basic/secondary education.
He said: ‘’First and foremost, I do believe that schools that are owned and funded by government are the ones the average and less privileged have access to. However, the reality is that the government schools are regarded as substandard compared to the private schools.
‘’So, here we have a dilemma. What it means is that the government must now wake up to its responsibilities to ensure that those schools, which are the only hope of the common man are properly funded. Schools need things like computers, furniture for both the students and teachers, and need health facilities. These cost money and unless government funds them, people will always struggle to look for money to send their children to private schools.”
Earlier, chairman of the occasion Ambassador Tayo Ogunsulire implored youths to imbibe the spirit of punctuality.
Ogunsulire praised the Odofin of Ondo Kingdom, Chief Ebun Olulaja who arrived the venue much earlier. He thanked the organisers of the event, the school and the school’s host community.
The highpoint of the event was the unveiling of the 174-page book, which reflects on landmark events and activities in OBHS over the past century.
The historic book is also consists of interviews.
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