Schools’ enrolment declining, Senator laments

The Senator representing Ogun Central Senatorial District in Ogun State, Shuaib Afolabi Salisu, has lamented that the quest for education is waning just like the schools’ enrolment declining among young Nigerians. He, therefore, asked traditional rulers to lead the charge towards tackling the growing menace of out of school children Ogun Central and across the […]

The Senator representing Ogun Central Senatorial District in Ogun State, Shuaib Afolabi Salisu, has lamented that the quest for education is waning just like the schools’ enrolment declining among young Nigerians.

He, therefore, asked traditional rulers to lead the charge towards tackling the growing menace of out of school children Ogun Central and across the state.

The Chairman of the Senate Committee on ICT & Cyber Security, spoke in Abeokuta, Ogun State, at a Capacity Building Workshop and Empowerment of Ogun Central Traditional Rulers, organised by the National Senior Secondary Education Commission in conjunction with Ampersand Development Partners.

The workshop facilitated by him was tagged “Roles in Ensuring Improved Enrolment of Students in Secondary School Education.”

In his remarks, Salisu “If you look at it critically now, you will notice that the quest for education is waning, enrolment trend is going down.

“In 10 years, 20 years time, are we going to be able to say as Ogun State or as Ogun Central that we are still in a prominent position as we used to be? I, therefore, want to address the problem at the root.”

The lawmaker said traditional rulers, as custodians of culture and tradition, must champion development of education in their domains.

“First, by employing our traditional rulers to serve as education advancement champions, meaning that our traditional rulers now begin the campaign of saying, yes, there could be challenges of people going to school and not getting jobs, yet, but when the jobs become available, they are not going to give them to people who are not educated.

“I am extremely distressed as Chairman of the Senate Committee on ICT and Cyber Security to hear news on Yahoo, Yahoo boys in my senatorial district. When I was growing up in this town, the Omoluabi ethos was strong; poems and poetry extol the virtues of character, the virtues of hard work, but what you notice is that our values have also been degraded.

“So the second part of this workshop is to also appeal to our traditional rulers as custodians of our culture, as the embodiment of our values, to say, let us focus on education, and the value system,” he said.

The Alake and paramount ruler of Egbaland, Oba Adedotun Gbadebo, in his remarks, said “Without education, everything else that you have is going to fade totally. It’s not fake, it’s the genuine way to develop society.

“And because of the position of traditional rulers as being number one in their respective areas and are very close to the grassroots, whatever they tell their people, whatever guidance they give, they will follow it, and we have no hesitation.”