Against the needless controversies and sabre-rattling over peripheral issues in Osun’s bourgeoning education policy, there is now an urgent need for a summit of all stakeholders to address the spate of misrepresentations and tension being created around the Osun public school policy. Hopefully, all stakeholders would be availed of the opportunity to dissect all the components of the policy and scrupulously prevent a situation in which an otherwise excellent public policy document will be compromised by a miasma of scurilious political intrigues and parochial religious predilections.
It is sad and unfortunate that a unique and rich policy that could have translated into a national strategy for bail-out of the shambolic public school sector, has suddenly assumed religious and political colourations, fuelled largely by mischief and partisanship.
The current trend of discussion relating to the Osun school system in circles expected to churn out informed opinions continues to focus solely on the reclassification of schools and aggressively attempt to rubbish the wider public spirit and mission of the policy. It is strange that the vocal minority raising hell over fringe issues in the policy conveniently forgets the holistic beneficial impact of the various components of the policy such as the OUniform, OMeal and Opon Imo, O School etc which have been adjudged as revolutionary concepts in public school management approach in the country.
The on-going rejuvenation of the public school sector in Osun is at once a strong rebranding project that has begun to impact positively on the state’s overall education management profile as well as the state’s economy in key areas like job creation, empowerment and agricultural development. It is providing a much-needed fillip and boost for children to inculcate, ab initio, a frenetic and unflagging desire to excel in life through a prism that provides easy elbow room for initiatives and exemplary conduct and scholastic aptitude.
It is against this backdrop that all well-meaning Osun indigenes must shun base sentiments and support the effort to create a new public school order in the state for the future of Osun children.
The proposed symposium must seek to dissect the various components of the much maligned Osun policy on public school management with a view to enhancing public understanding and appreciation of its desirability. The symposium will also serve as a platform for constructive engagement of critical stakeholders to ensure the non-derailment of the noble vision behind the policy formulation.
It would be recalled that while counting the modest gains recorded by the state’s new education policy in less than two years of its implementation, the state governor, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, had posited that the need for the policy as a comprehensive and holistic response to a scandalous educational rot, which had threatened the socio-economic growth of the state, was non-negotiable.
“Our education policy is tailored towards making the Osun public schools system produce the complete child, to become the complete youth and grow up to become the complete citizen, empowered in learning and in character, in the best tradition of the Yoruba Omoluabi. That way, they would be equipped, culturally and academically, anywhere they find themselves in the world, aside from becoming patriots, to take care of their state and country that had earlier taken care of them,” he explained.
He equally noted then that the reforms have had tremendous multi-level impacts on the Osun educational competitiveness. For instance, in the area of funding, the reforms have led to a radical increase in grants and subventions for the administration of public primary and secondary schools as total grant for the 1378 pubic primary schools in Osun jumped from N7.4 million a year to N424 million a year.
Additionally, Osun, from a 34th placing among Nigeria’s 36 states in 2010, moved to 18th position in 2011 and 8th position in 2012, in performance rankings in the West African School Certificate Examinations (WASCE). Pupils from the state have also chalked up improved performances in national and international competitions, according to compilations by the Osun Ministry of Education. In addition, the reforms have earned a partnership with UNESCO to build a regional teacher training institute in the state, and a fresh programme in the area of adult education.
And since the critical success factor for any reform is sound management and welfare, at the heart of the new education reforms is a restructured Education Administration Modality which involves creating specialised agencies to address key components in public schools management. According to Aregbesola, one such special agency created by the new education policy is the Teachers Establishment and Pension Office (TEPO).
“As the name clearly implies, aside from teacher recruitment, TEPO takes charge of human capacity development in Osun public schools: teachers’ career advancement, training and retraining, teaching incentives, promotion, prompt payment of salaries and allowances. TEPO not only tackles teachers’ welfare while they are in active service; it also looks after their pension after retirement,” governor Aregbesola further explained.
Let it be also resoundingly noted that the role of the Opon Imo initiative is an integrative approach to providing qualitative learning aids by the instrumentality of ICT. Unquestionably, the initiative has been hailed as a masterstroke by many education pundits within and outside Nigeria. It has also received the commendation of the United Nations as a revolutionary learning innovation to help Africa and the rest of the Third World improve its educational capacity.
A word on the standardised school uniform is most pertinent here. The concept of standard uniforms for Osun public schools, branded O’Uniform, was conceived with an eye to rebrand public schools in the state as well as reflate the Osun economy to employ as many designers, tailors, local textile workers and allied artisans as possible, in the production of school uniforms. This culture-fired indigenous and standardised uniform for 750, 000 public school pupils, which the Omoluabi Garments Factory is currently implementing, has received international commendations from UNESCO, just as the first sets of the uniforms produced under the scheme were distributed free to the pupils. It is difficult to imagine that a peculiar school uniform will prevent indiscipline in each respective school as some interests laughably pontificated. Uniform or no uniform, a child with impaired impulses will always turn out a miscreant; contrariwise, a child well nourished, properly husbanded and deliberately cultured through a full-orbed school policy can always be trusted to excel. The issue at stake is not about a parochial attachment to a uniform or to a school; it is about an egalitarian approach, all-embracing, that must provide the generality of students with the boost to excel in life. This cannot and must not be left to chance.
On the school feeding scheme, branded O’Meal and currently being implemented in the elementary schools with nearly 255, 000 pupils served highly nutritive daily lunch on school days, the idea was founded on the principle of good nutrition as incentive for learning readiness. The scheme has helped to boost public school enrolment figures in the state, in addition to serving as a catalyst of backward integration for a renewed Osun agricultural programme. It is on account of its eminent and laudable underpinnings that Aregbesola was invited to Westminster, London about a month ago, to share the Osun concept with other like-minded interests.
Let us dissect the issues as dispassionately as it is required, especially for the sake of our children. If there are contentious issues that truly need a review, no one can reasonably oppose that. But we must be careful never to allow the chicanery of petty politicians or the folly of religious bigots to derail a policy that is sure to stand out the crop of present students as truly distinguished and accomplished citizens a decade from now.
Oke is a public policy analyst based in Osogbo.
