The
Governor of Osun, 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, saying his administration will not do anything
that will purposely inflict pains on workers, citizens and residents of
the state.
Aregbesola stated these while addressing
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.
He pointed out that the era of when
graduates from colleges of education will be looking for jobs in other
sectors will soon be over in the state.
He said such amounts to a loss for government and a waste of time for the students when it happens.
He added that polytechnics and colleges
of education will henceforth organise remedial instructions for
secondary school leavers preparing for the 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.
Aregbesola added that a reasonable
measure of freedom must exist in any academic community to be able to
bring out the best in the faculty and students, stressing that he as a
product of academic freedom cannot therefore poison the well from which
he drank.
He, however, stated that freedom carries responsibility and that responsibility begins with critical self-examination.
The governor said academic institutions should be capable of self-examination leading to self-regeneration.
He noted that a critical mass must
emerge from every institution, nudging it towards self-redefinition and
self-correction, in order to retain its relevance. In his address, the
Provost of the institution, Professor Isaac Olayinka Oyewole, commended
Governor Aregbesola on his selfless contributions towards rebuilding
and repositioning the education sector, saying he is the first governor
to achieve such giant strides in infrastructural development in the
state.
He pointed out that the new library was
designed to be able to accommodate 2,000 users at a time, emphasising
that with the new transformation, the institution can conveniently boast
of housing the modern digital library unit.
He said the new library building was
constructed to fulfil the need for more reading space to complement the
existing one, noting that the step was also taken in fulfilment of the
greater demand of the NCCE Accreditation Panel.
He said: “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.”
The provost revealed that the newly
constructed lecture hall is a 2010/2011 merger TETFund intervention to
cater for the poor accommodation for lectures, hence helps to complement
the existing lecture halls in the college.
He said the lecture hall was designed to
accommodate 500 students at a time, saying the new hall was constructed
under the TETFUND Special Grant at the cost of N34,497,886.50.
Earlier, the Chairman, Governing
Council, OSSCE, Mr. Niyi Akande, who described Governor Aregbesola as a
true democrat, said Aregbesola has been using his noble discretion in
ensuring that the college achieves a lot of development within the
shortest possible time.
He assured the state of the
institution’s commitment in achieving the transition of the college to a
degree-awarding institution.
Akande said the council had performed
tremendously in rescuing the college’s land from trespassers, cleansing
students’ admission processes and expanding opportunities for improved
internally generated revenue of the college.
He noted that the construction of the
ongoing classroom blocks and offices will greatly facilitate the
college’s transition to a degree-awarding institution as being inspired.
“This council right from the first day
it visited the college on June 14, 2013, saw its job well cut for
meaningful physical development of the institution as the decadence
observed in the traditional ways of doing things had changed.
“Our belief was that in the wake of such
attitudinal change could we break the prevailing culture of impunity
which was holding the college by the jugular, thereby choking it so much
that the college had become comatose at the time of our appointment.
“We thank Mr. Governor for his
understanding of our position and for lending us a shoulder to cry upon
during the endless crises we have gone through in the last three years
in the service of the college”, he added.