Osun inaugurates another high school edifice at Ilesa

•Citizens identification initiative cards launched

The Osun State government yesterday inaugurated another state-of-the-art high school at Ilesa Government High School in Ilesa.

Also, the government unveiled the Citizens Identification Initiative cards, called Kaadi Omoluabi, to be distributed to indigenes.

The inauguration of Ilesa Government High School was in continuation of the Rauf Aregbesola administration’s policy to build 100 state-of-the-art elementary schools, 50 middle schools and 20 high schools.

Of these, 20 elementary schools, 22 middle schools and 11 high schools have been completed.

Four high schools had been previously inaugurated, starting with Wole Soyinka Government High School at Ejigbo; Osogbo Government High School (formally Osogbo Grammar School) in Osogbo; Adventist Government High Schoola (formerly Seventh Day Adventist Grammar School) at Ede and Ataoja Government High School (formerly Ataoja School of Science)  in Osogbo.

The “new” Ilesa Government High School has 72 classrooms of 49 square meters each, capable of sitting 49 students, six offices for study groups, six laboratories, 18 toilets for young ladies, 18 toilets for young men, science library, art library, facility manager’s office, bookshop, sick bay, bursar’s office, three principals’ offices, three general staff office, senior principal’s office, records store and security shed/reception.

Besides, there is a 1,000 square metres of floor space hall capable of sitting 1,000 pupils for external examinations. It has storage for equipment, utility storage, a stage, office space, storage for documents, four female toilets and four male toilets.

The school boasts Olympic-sized football field, nine-lane sprinting tracks for 100 meters and 400 meters events, a pavilion and outdoor basketball court that doubles as tennis court.

Also equipped with stand-alone transformer for electricity and a borehole, the school cost N1.3 billion, including its furnishing, landscape and electronic boards, the government said yesterday.

In his speech, titled: ‘’The Making of the Educated Person’’, Aregbesola said the state has public schools that could compete with the best in the world.

The governor said the provision of the new school buildings was in fulfilment of his administration’s promise to provide functional education to pupils.

He said: “All these are in fulfilment of our promise to provide functional basic education. This stems from our conviction that every child is owed basic education. It is a fundamental and inalienable right of every child. We have gone this length and committed such huge amount on education because we are preparing for the future.

“A good basic education fulfils the definition of literacy as the ability to read and write and is a solid foundation on which other superstructure of vocational training or higher education can be built.

“Having the ability to read means that one can receive information and systematised knowledge stored in various retrieval forms, like books, digital electronic devices and by direct observation of events and phenomena.

“This includes the capacity to observe, understand and make sense out of nature, creation and one’s environment in the most basic form. To write means also that one can graphically reproduce one’s thoughts, observations, ideas and received knowledge in clear, free-flowing prose, in at least one language.

“We are, therefore, developing the new literate man, a man not just for himself but for the collective; one who sees his own existence and value in the light of other members of the society.

“We have seen the future. Before our very eyes, advances in science and technology are changing our world. In the foreseeable future, we will see that those who are not well educated will be onlookers and will have no place in it.

“Generally, the world is in

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