In furtherance of its resolve to revamp education at all levels in Ogun State, the State Ministry of Education has proposed to expend N6bn on construction of public schools and another N3.2bn to rehabilitate public schools in the State to further improve the teaching and learning conditions of teachers and pupils.
The Permanent Secretary in the State Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, Mr. Olu Aikulola said this while giving explanations on the Ministry’s 2020 budget proposal before the State lawmakers in continuation of the ongoing budget defence at the Assembly Complex, Oke-Mosan, Abeokuta.
In addition to the rehabilitation of 90 schools earlier done across the three Senatorial Districts by the Prince Dapo Abiodun led administration, Aikulola said the 2020 budget would bring about the construction 3 blocks of classrooms in 280 combined secondary schools, construction of 2 classrooms in 171 secondary schools and another eight technical workshops/science laboratories across the State.
The Permanent Secretary, who reaffirmed that the Ministry was irrevocably committed to ensuring quality standard at all levels of education in the State, said more logistic and technical supports would be provided to improve on the unified examination, which he noted was a unified benchmark to assess the performance of both teachers and pupils.
On the 2020 budget analysis, Aikulola said the Ministry proposed a total sum of N18.3bn, out of which a sum of N15.51bn was set aside for capital projects and N2.798bn for recurrent expenses with N3.5bn expected as revenue.
On his part, the representative of the Permanent Secretary, Teaching Service Commission (TESCOM), and Director, Finance and Account, Adesina Towolawi, stressed the need for manpower increment in the secondary schools in the next fiscal year, hence it planned to boost the Commission’s workforce with additional 1,500 teaching and 500 non-teaching staff for the 1,565 schools in the next fiscal year.
Towolawi, who reiterated that the commission was empowered to maximise the quality level of teaching in secondary schools through intellectual professionalism towards teaching technology, put forward N30.291bn financial proposal for the Commission, consisting of N4.849bn for capital projects, N25.442bn for recurrent expenses and N16.5m as revenue target.
Meanwhile, the Provost, Tai Solarin College of Education, (TASCE), Dr. Adeola Kiadese said the institution would restructure all its academic programmes with much emphasis on entrepreneurial and vocational skills that would promote self reliance amongst the students with a view to making them compete favourably with products of other higher institutions.
To this end, Kiadese proposed a total budget size of N906m, which included N165.1m for various developmental projects on campus, N741m for recurrent expenses, while N940m was being expected as revenue into government’s coffers.
