***Distributes 10,000 textbooks to students In Ekiti Central
The 10th Senate will strive hard to facilitate improved budgetary funding for the education sector, the senate leader, Senator Opeyemi Bamidele, has assured Nigerians.
Bamidele who represents Ekiti Central Senatorial District, pointed out that the measure remains the best way to rescue education from total collapse, and make it functional as a potent weapon to combat poverty.
The senator gave the indication in Aramoko Ekiti, Ekiti West Local Government Area, on Monday, while distributing 10,000 textbooks to 5,000 students across 50 secondary schools the local councils in his Senatorial district.
Bamidele, represented by his Senior Legislative aide, Hon. Bunmi Oguntuase, expressed pleasure and concurrence with the statement credited to President Bola Tinubu that proper funding of education remains a top priority of his government.
The Lawmaker maintained that Tinubu’s friendly posture to education would complement the position being espoused by Senator Godswill Akpabio-led Senate that the sector must be funded properly to benefit Nigeria.
The Senate Leader lamented the recurrent federal government’s negation of the 26% prescribed by UNESCO as budgetary funding to the sector, describing this as the greatest undoing of education in the country.
He said: “Education remains a leveler between the children of the rich and poor in any society. It is the most potent instrument we can use to combat poverty and insecurity. This has been the position of President Tinubu and the current Senate.
“The major focus of the Akpabio-led Senate is to ensure that the sector is properly funded. No country can advance beyond the level of its available human resources and the only way our human resources can be polished and made productive, is through qualitative education.
“So, the current Senate won’t compromise on adequate budgetary funding for education. No nation jokes with education and witness economic advancement. It is the major impetus to bolster radical development in any developing economy like ours.
“We are also happy that President Tinubu had demonstrated his love for the sector by signing the Students’ Loan into law. This gave an inkling into how desirous he is to fund education”.
Speaking about the gesture, Bamidele said the free textbooks distribution was meant to propel education in Ekiti that was widely reverred as the Fountain of Knowledge through enhancement of students’ knowledge in English Language and Mathematics .
The Senator commended Governor Biodun Oyebanji for his commitment to reposition education in Ekiti via recruitment of adequate manpower to strengthen the sector.
“Within the last few months, Governor Oyebanji had recruited over 3,000 teachers into primary and secondary schools in Ekiti and I initiated this programme to complement what the government is doing to rejig education in Ekiti.
“I know that the English Language and Mathematics textbooks will help our students, particularly those from poor backgrounds, whose parents can’t afford to buy them books”.
Dignitaries at the presentation included: Ado Central LCDA Chairman, Hon. Toyin Ojo, Ado North LCDA chairman, Hon. Yomi Oso, Okemesi Ido Ile LCDA Chairman, Hon. Sunday Ajibade, and Ekameta LCDA Chairman, Hon. Ebenezer Adebusuyi