The deployment of actionable steps at complementing state government’s efforts at grooming pupils in public primary schools across the state will promote a sustainable educational system.

Ogun State Commissioner for Budget and Planning, Mr. Olaolu Olabimtan, who stated this while playing host to the management of Yewa South Local Government Education Authority in his office in Abeokuta, frowned at the attitude of parents and guardians, who were unwilling to invest in their wards, saying grooming of young minds was an investment and a collective responsibility of government, parents, guardians and other stakeholders in the education sector.

Olabimtan reiterated that the present administration had strategically put in place, technologically-driven initiatives such as, Ogun State Education Revitalisation Agenda (OGSERA), Learners Identification Number (LIN), among others, to aid teaching and learning across the state as well as make teachers’ jobs seamless, calling on the management of the Authority to provide useful data and statistics, with evidence-based outcomes that would support government in its drive at developing young minds.

The Commissioner, while responding to the issue of infrastructural deficits in some public schools in the area, advised the management to provide pictorial evidence of dilapidated structures in such schools with cost estimate, tasking the authority to put in place mechanisms to checkmate factors mitigating the success of the Home-Grown Feeding Programme, targeted at improving the health and educational outcomes of public primary school pupils.

“I congratulate the Executive Secretary, Monitoring Officers and other members of Yewa South Education Authority Board for this visit and particularly their one-year stewardship out of the four-year tenure in office. I challenge the team to look inwards, understand your roles and endeavour to leverage on the inherent potentials abound in our young ones”, he said.

Speaking on competitive activities and programmes that would add value and expand the pupils’ horizon, the Commissioner promised to host competitions in Yoruba language and Mathematics for the development of the pupils, calling on the management of the Education Authority to be diligent and transparent in the discharge of their duties, as well as shun acts that could jeopardise the sector.

Earlier, Education Secretary of the Board, Prince Oluwarotimi Akanbi, said the visit was to give account of the Board’s stewardship, as it affects basic education in the local government and to seek advice on challenging areas affecting the smooth delivery of service to the people.