The Caring Heart Mega School initiated by Ondo State Governor, Dr Olusegun Mimiko has been described by the Federal Government as a World-class achievement.
The Minister of State for Education, Mr Nyesom Wike announced this in Akure yesterday at the launch of the first Caring Heart Mega Primary School in the country.
He added that the Federal Government has therefore scheduled for Akure the Ondo state capital, the launch of its National Free Textbooks and Resource Materials Scheme for the South West which comes up next week.
According to the minister, the choice of the state capital for the launch was due to the world-class and unparalleled achievements of the state governor, Dr. Olusegun Mimiko’s administration in the education sector in the past three years.
‘As Minister of State for Education, I have not seen such a 21st Century-compliant primary school like this one in the entire country. This is the first of its kind in Nigeria. It is simply a world-class achievement”, Wike declared.
Also, the Executive Secretary of the National Universal Basic Education Commission, Alhaji Modibbo Mohammed urged other states in the federation to adopt the Mega School system as another way of strengthening the Universal Basic Education Scheme.
Speaking while commissioning the school, Mimiko said the state government has lifted primary education from its dysfunctional state to higher level in the past two years with the construction of 32 world-class Mega primary schools.
According to him, “Four of the schools which are located across the 18 local government areas of the state are now ready for commissioning, 27 others are at the various stages of completion while more of such schools are on the way.
He said, “Construction work will soon commence in some designated centres among which are Ijare, Olebu and Igbobini as soon as the award process is concluded.
“State public schools, particularly of the primary education variety, face certain irrelevance, if not total extinction via dwindling pupils’ enrolment in the face of serious competition with private schools despite their commercial fees.
“The resultant effect of this inherently discriminatory system is that qualitative, but free primary and secondary education in the state became only a mental construct and catchy political sloganeering because in practice, only the rich could afford it.
The governor explained that the state educational policy provides the opportunity for the lumping of two or more existing primary schools together to make one Mega School instead of having schools inadequate to build an educationally-sound critical mass.
”The Mega Schools are the state government’s way of providing the best of education obtainable in private schools in the state’s public schools system and to serve as models below which future public or private schools cannot fall”, Mimiko said.