It is no news that the administration of Governor Seyi Makinde in Oyo State have been making progress within the short period of his stay in office.Professor Gidado TahirAccording to Professor Gidado Tahir, who led a delegation from UBEC and SUBEB during a courtesy visit to the governor of Oyo State on Friday, the state is set to receive a sum of $6m grant under the Better Education Service Delivery for All (BESDA) programme facilitated by the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) with the support of the World Bank, National Coordinator of BESDA.Speaking on the latest development, he explained that the programme is “aimed at drastically reducing the rate of out of school children across the country, while noting that Oyo state is among 17 states who had benefitted from the programme.”Tahir also revealed that the state would get the first tranche of the fund in the sum of $3m in due time.In his words,“this is a programme that is designed specifically for all children who are not in school for the purpose that they are given education, particularly literacy.“My plea to you is to deliver the message to the governor to let us see that we clear the less than 300,000 children on the streets before the mid-term. Let’s commit ourselves to see that this is done.”
Governor Seyi Makinde, who was represented by his Deputy, Engr. Raufu Olaniyan, responded by emphasizing the conclusion of the state government in ensuring qualitative education in the state and promised to support the scheme.
Olaniyan said,
“We know the number of out of school students all over the state, we know what will happen when we clean up, it’s going to have a spiral effect on other surrounding states.”
“BESDA is a very laudable programme which means a lot to the people and government of Oyo State. Before this government came into power, Oyo State already has maximum budgetary provision of 4 – 5 per cent for education.” he further said.
The deputy governor, however, assured that the current administration would reserve nothing less than 10 percent of budgetary allocation for education in the State.
The chairman Oyo state universal basic education board (SUBEB), Dr Nureeni Adeniran was not left out as he assured that the state would comply with the standard blueprint in executing the programme and that by next session there would be a reduction in out of school children in Oyo state.
