Tertiary education reforms not based on religion, witch-hunt – Aregbesola

The Governor of Osun State, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola has described the speculation that the ongoing restructuring and reforms being carried out in all the state owned tertiary institutions were aimed at retrenching workers as false and baseless.

The governor also noted that the idea behind the reform exercise was not to witch-hunt but to bring up the quality of the lecturers.

He said his administration would not do anything that will purposely inflict pains on workers, citizens and residents of the state.

Aregbesola stated these while addressing the people during the official commissioning of N140m E-Library and N34.4m Ultra-Modern Lecture Hall of Osun State College of Education, (OSSCE), Ila-Orangun.

The governor stated that to discontinue with the practice of the past, hence the need for the restructuring of the school to have less fresh intakes but include retraining of teachers as part of its core mission.

He added that Polytechnics and Colleges of Education would henceforth organise remedial instructions for secondary school leavers preparing for SSCE retake and admissions into higher institutions.

He said, “You will all agree that there have been many innovations in education and those still teaching with the knowledge they acquired 20 years ago have fallen behind time.

“We must also improve the quality of our teachers, if we want to improve the quality of education we are giving to the young ones. This puts to rest the false, unfounded and malicious speculation that the government is closing down these schools.

“The reforms must also bring up the quality of the lecturers.  I must also add that the government has no intention of witch-hunting or victimising anyone for his or her religious, political or ideological leaning.

“What we are trying to do is to ensure everyone is qualified and fits into the bigger picture of the holistic education we are providing in the state” the governor said.

In his address, the Provost of the institution, Professor Isaac Olayinka Oyewole, commended Governor Rauf Aregbesola on his contributions towards rebuilding and repositioning the education sector.

He pointed out that the new library was designed to be able to accommodate 2000 users at a time, emphasising that with the new transformation, the institution can conveniently boast of housing the modern digital library unit.

He added, “The edifice, houses e-library section with 300 computer units, one big computer server, 5KVA inverter, a local Area Network that connects all the units of the library together.

“Currently it is equipped with reading tables and chairs to seat about 1000 users at a time. It also houses 25,000 textbooks and reference materials with about 9,000 academic journals.

“It contains 12,000 past student projects and about five year old newspapers and magazines.”