Education is critical component of my agenda, says Oyetola

Osun State Governor Gboyega Oyetola has said that education is a critical component of the agenda of his administration to take the state to the next level.

He said his vision is to continually increase access to quality education to make the residents and citizens of the state realise their full potentials.

The governor spoke at the opening ceremony of the 79th plenary meeting of the Joint Consultative Committees on Education, which was hosted by the state.

He said his administration is set to promote equitable and qualitative public education, provide value-based education with an emphasis on the competence and character in line with Omoluabi ethos.


The governor said he would invest in better equipment and teacher training facilities, adding that he would sustain investment in school infrastructure development, “which was started by Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola’s administration”.

Linking the nation’s unstable development to failure of the education sector to respond to the needs of the people, Oyetola said there are obvious gaps in technical and vocational education, which, according to him, are expected to take care of middle-level manpower challenges.

The governor, who said it was imperative that technical and vocational education should support entrepreneurship to attain self-reliance and create jobs for the youths, maintained that civic education should be made to entrench political and citizenship education to “weld our diverse and multi-religious and multi-ethnic nation together”.

Oyetola urged the committees as professionals to make the quality of their recommendations to assist various state governments in achieving qualitative and functional education to lift the nation out of the lingering quagmire in the education sector.

Permanent Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Education, Sonny Echono, who was represented by the Director of Basic Senior Education, Dr. Mrs. Lami Ahmodu, said with the depression in the labour market, education should be tailored towards the acquisition of skills and ability that can make individuals productive and self-reliant.

Also, the state Head of Service, Dr. Olowogboyega Oyebade, said the committees should continue to look into the approved draft of the National Policy on Open Educational Resources for higher education in Nigeria, which he noted had been recommended by the National Executive Council at the last meeting for immediate implementation.