Education

Ekiti Targets Zero Percent Out-of-School Children Record

By Web News 257

By Ayodeji Kazeem

Ekiti State governor, Mr Biodun Oyebanji says his administration is working hard to ensure that the state sets zero per cent record of out-of-school children within the next two years.

Speaking at an event at Ekiti State University in Ado Ekiti, Governor Oyebanji highlighted that Ekiti already leads the nation in school attendance rates and has the lowest number of out-of-school children.

Emphasizing the critical role of education in fostering societal, political, and economic development, he reaffirmed the government’s dedication to continuous investment in education. 

Governor Oyebanji also noted the significant progress made through partnerships with various agencies, resulting in extensive renovations of over 200 secondary schools and the provision of educational materials to enhance the learning environment for students.

The governor called for a unified effort from all education stakeholders to further advance the quality of education in Ekiti State.

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Fasilat Lawal

Parenting Tips

The Child: Whose Responsibility?

By Web News 635

By Olaitan Oye-Adeitan

We are now in the age and times when we may really need to unmask the truth of whose responsibility is the child, Government, Society or Parents.

Today, some parents blame the teacher for every one of their children’s failures. Society also shares part of it and the government is not exempted.

Statements such as “that teacher is not performing his/her duty very well, see what the society has turned our children to, our government is not helping our children at all ” are now freely and commonly expressed by some parents due to the shortcomings in their children’s academic performance or behavioural pattern.

We may however need to counter these statements with the following questions; Who is to blame when the child refuses to do his homework ( a work that is expected to be done at home), and which keeps piling up? Must the teacher be blamed when a mother decides to do the assignment for her child rather than to guide him/ her through it?

Also, who is to blame when a child watches sensual films with his parents? Then when the boy attempts to have carnal knowledge of a mate, who is of the opposite sex, is the teacher also responsible?

Oh, we may as well ask, if it is the government that teaches a child to be unruly and bully other mates in school, dress in tattered uniform, wear crazy haircuts, with vulgar expressions gushing out of the lips without caution.

While we do not deny the fact that the teacher, society or environment, and government fall under secondary influencers when it comes to child development, parents still remain the major stakeholders in terms of child care, training and overall development.

From infancy, a child is welcomed into the hands of a father and mother and grows under their tutelage until maturity.
Even a child born outside wedlock has a father and mother.

However, someone may argue that what about children who are orphans? The truth is even an orphan is handed over to a caregiver in a family or orphanage. The case of a set of twin brothers comes to mind. Their mother died during their birth and the father took to heels realising they were twins. Perhaps, for fear of responsibility, only God knows. These twin brothers were raised by their maternal grandmother and today, one is a successful lawyer and the other a doctor.

Children who are used for rituals, abandoned at birth either under the bridge, beside the river, on refuse dumps or in most unimaginable places as reported in the news, have the hands of one or both parents.

Psychologist, Sigmund Freud posited that personality forms during the first few years of life and that how parents and other caregivers interact with children has a long-lasting impact on children’s emotional state.

Another research corroborated this by saying that a personality formed by the age of six or seven is not likely to deviate from its core.

Therefore, parents must realise that the formative years of a child must not be joked with and it begins from the home, just like the age-long proverb, “Charity begins at home”.
At this early stage, all the senses of the child imbibe consciously or unconsciously from elements around him, of which the parents are key.
As the child grows, all he has absorbed begins to manifest and the picture gets bigger by the day.

If there is no solid foundation for that child during his formative years, he or she will be swayed by the wind of abnormalities in his environment. It is like building a house on a shaky foundation
Such will easily crumble amid storms.

This is not to exempt other stakeholders who are the teachers and government. As a teacher, you are to make and not mar them through impactful teachings. So, a case where a teacher is found defiling his/her pupil is appalling and highly unacceptable.

Government, on its part, must be seen to uphold the Child Rights Act(2023). 24 out of 36 states of Nigeria have adopted the CRA as a state law. Therefore, twelve (12) states in Nigeria have yet to adopt the CRA in their laws of the 36 states of the federation.

Needlessly is, therefore, trading blame when it comes to whose responsibility is the child’s. The truth be told; you carry the major responsibility as a parent because you are given the child directly by God.

And to whom much is given, much is expected!

Education

Falana Tasks N’Assembly on out-of-School Children

By Web News 483

Human rights lawyer and activist, Femi Falana (SAN), has called on the National Assembly to address Nigeria’s worrisome out-of-school crisis to save the future of the country.

Falana made the call in a speech he read at a summit on Nigeria’s out-of-school crisis, hosted by the UK charity IA Foundation in Lagos at the weekend.

The activist said that the refusal of state governments to make counterpart contributions to the Universal Basic Education Fund in the country was hampering access to basic education in Nigeria.

A 2022 UNESCO report said that approximately 20 million children are out of school in Nigeria, which is Africa’s most populous nation.

Falana, in his speech, made available to the press in Abuja on Sunday, stressed the need for the National Assembly to act fast, lamenting that the number of out-of-school children in the country was alarming.

According to him, pursuant to Section 2 of the Compulsory Free Universal Basic Education Act, it is important for the state governments to make counterpart contributions to the Universal Basic Education Fund, which has continually been ignored.

The activist argued that the National Assembly should ensure an amendment of the constitution to empower the accountant-general of the federation to deduct the counterpart fund payable by every state government from its source.

“In June last year, the Executive Secretary of the Universal Basic Education Commission, Mr Hamid Bobboyi, bemoaned the refusal of state governments to provide counterpart funding and access the annual matching grants given by the commission to develop their basic education system.

“The commission was particularly concerned that about N110 billion of the intervention funds accessed from UBEC were not utilised by the states in 2021, with the money left in the coffers of State Universal Basic Education Boards.

“Sometime in 2017, we learnt that the Federal Government had decided to refund state governments all monies so far deducted from their accounts to meet the London Paris Club obligations.

“We were able to convince the Federal Government to deduct the counterpart fund that the state governments had failed to contribute to the Universal Basic Education Fund.

“The suggestion was accepted by the Federal Government and that was how the sum of N71.3 billion was deducted from source and remitted to the account of UBEC.

“Thereafter, UBEC added the matching grant of N71.3 billion and the states received a total of N142.6bn for the provision of needed facilities in public primary and junior secondary schools in the country.

“What the National Assembly should do is to address the refusal of state governments to make counterpart contributions to the Universal Basic Education Fund pursuant to Section 2 of the Compulsory Free Universal Basic Education Act.’’

According to him, the National Assembly should, as a matter of urgency, ensure the amendment of the constitution to empower the accountant-general of the federation to deduct the counterpart fund payable by every state government from its source.

Falana explained further that since each of the 36 states of the federation had adopted the Child’s Rights Act and enacted a Child’s Rights Law, it had become the joint responsibility of the federal, state and local governments to ensure that every Nigerian child was given an opportunity to acquire free and compulsory education.

He added that the Discrimination Against Persons With Disabilities (Prohibition) Act of 2019 guaranteed free education up to senior secondary school level for every person with a disability.

“In the same vain, all public schools, whether primary, secondary or tertiary shall have at least one personnel trained to cater for the educational development of persons with disabilities or special facilities for the effective education of persons with disabilities.

“These laws have been observed in their breach because the members of the political class, drawn from all registered political parties have not demonstrated any commitment to the education of every child in Nigeria.

“The members of the legislative and executive organs of governments have failed to appreciate the danger of having 18.5 million out-of-school children, the highest in the world.

“Therefore, amending the Compulsory Free Universal Basic Education Act to make it more stringent for parents will not work in a poverty-stricken environment,” Falana said.

Punch/Simeon Ugbodovon

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Parenting Tips

Give Carrot, But Don’t Spare the Rod

By Web News 970

Olaitan Oye-Adeitan in this piece writes on indulgence as a breeding ground for incorrigibility among children.

Perhaps, we should ask, how did we get to this point? How did all these begin, that a child will have the effrontry to frame up a teacher just because the teacher scolded him for a misbehaviour in school? 
The child was only asked to stand up in class for disturbing, as a minor punishment, only for him to complain to his mother that his body was seriously aching because he claimed the teacher canned  and insulted him.
In anger, the mother stormed the school and vented her anger on the teacher, raging profusely.

The experience of another teacher also comes to mind, as a student lied against her just because she enforced discipline. It was discovered that the student had a chat book, where she wrote all manners of unbelievable things whenever the teacher was in the class. Rather than listen in class, she conversed with her book of ‘mischief’, until the teacher caught her one day.

 Should we also talk about the experience of a primary school teacher, who was assaulted to the point of death by the parents of a Primary One pupil at a school in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, for canning the pupil who was found to have written answers on his laps during exams? But for the saving grace of God, the teacher would have lost her life in the hands of these parents.

Recently, there was the report of a school teacher at a secondary school at Agbor, in Delta State, who was attacked on the school premises by the father of a student, disciplined for misconduct. Eventually, the teacher died.

Numerous are the examples of high level of indiscipline among children and culpability of parents taking sides with their wards over actions they should have been well scolded for.
It is a dangerous thing for a child in her formative years to be made to see the immoral, abnormal as acceptable and normal way of life.

Dangling the carrot and sparing the rod is not in any way ideal for child training and development. 
We are now in a society where some parents are controlled by their kids, with the parents even defending what shouldn’t be defended at all. There are some actions that are to the detriment of the child’s health.


For instance, a woman once took her ill daughter to hospital. After consultations, the doctor recommended some drugs to be administered to the child. But , the mother said the child would not take the particular tablet from her, and declined giving the child the prescribed drug despite the doctor’s suggestion, not until her husband told her that he would know how to ensure their daughter took the drug.

I have also heard, some parents, especially mothers utter statements such as ” I can’t allow anyone to cain my child oo.I knew what I faced on the day of delivery.

Such mindset is the reason some parents fight or abuse their children’s teachers or anyone who tries to scold them for their misbehaviour, forgetting that sparing the rod bakes a spoilt brat who in turn would become a trouble to the home and society.

Some mothers are equally in the habit of indulging their kids when being punished for an offence by their fathers rather than speaking with one voice to correct that child.

This among other factors accounts for increasing level of moral decadence, youthful exhuberance and juvenile delinquency.

Parents who are guilty of this should realise that loving a child is not in pampering and providing all material needs  but also requires enforcing appropriate discipline when the child errs, in love.

A child that is left to go away with what he should be punished for will grow up believing, that is the normal way of life .And like the Yoruba adage, ” Ati kekere lati peka iroko, to ba dagba tan, ebo ni yio gba lowo eni, meaning .a stitch in time saves nine.

Birth pains, struggles encountered while raising a child, the soft spot you have or special instructions attached to the destiny of that child should not debar parents from inculcating discipline in a child.

One unarguable truth we must remember is that, children are gifts of God to families and a such, they are divine assignments in the hands of custodians. Like the Holy Scriptures instructs, “Train your child in the way of the Lord, when he grows up, he will not depart from it”.

If this instruction is neglected, then the child is vulnerable to being trained by the ‘World.’

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Education

Library, an engine room for students – Lawmaker

By Web News 348

By Mojisola Oladele 

The Osun State House of Assembly has promised to give necessary support needed to give the State Library the required facelift.

The Chairman, House Committee on Education, Mr. Sikiru Bajepade gave the assurance during a meeting with officials of the State Library Board held at the Assembly Complex, Osogbo.

Mr  Bajepade describes library as engine room necessary for both the students and learners in the society.

In separate contributions, other members of the Committee noted that library contributes positively to society’s development.

They advised the management to carry the Committee along in their activities.

In a remark, the Chief Librarian of Osun State, Mrs Funke Kolawole lamented the bad conditions of the state library and also revitalization of  community libraries across the state.

Mrs Kolawole said that most of towns in local government areas across the state does not have community library for students.

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Education

Ogun Govt. Inaugurates Committee on School Infrastructure

By Web News 323

By Segun Folarin

Ogun State Government has inaugurated a committee to conduct integrity tests on various school infrastructures as part of efforts to provide a conducive and safe learning environment for students across the state.

The Special Adviser to the Governor on Education, Science, and Technology, Professor Abayomi Arigbabu stated when he led the team from the Education and Housing Ministries to inspect a collapsed building at Agbado District Comprehensive High School, Ifo.

Professor Arigbabu explained the committee would quickly move around the schools across the state to carefully evaluate the viability of the existing structures to ascertain the possibility of usage alongside the newly rehabilitated and constructed ones.

He noted that the construction of the collapsed eight-classroom building started in 2007 and had not been put into use because the present administration in the state could not guarantee its desirability for usage.

Professor Arigbabu gave the assurance that the present administration would not entrust its projects into the hands of any contractors without the requisite capacity to meet up the standard required by the government.

In a reaction, the Principal, of Agbado District Comprehensive High School, Junior, Mr. Ayodeji Ogunleye, lauded the two Ministries for the quick response, promising to do all within their capacity to maintain school infrastructure.

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