Convener/National Coordinator of Social Rehabilitation Gruppe (SRG), Dr. Marindoti Oludare, has tasked government at the state and local government levels to replicate the kind gesture of the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, by assisting indigent students and pupils of secondary and primary schools, respectively.
The President recently announced student loans cutting across tertiary institutions in the country.
Oludare, a US-based medical doctor from Ondo State, Nigeria, gave the admonition at the end-of-session party organised for pupils of Delad Nursary and Primary School, Iro, Akure, Ondo State.
The medic and socio-political activist noted that President Tinubu had set the template for giving access to children from poor homes who aspire to become graduates but are constrained by funds, hence the newly introduced student loans, fashioned after the Western world’s.
“That is why I am appealing to state and local government administrations nationwide to fashion out similar programmes such as scholarship, bursary and other grants to indigent students of secondary schools and pupils of primary and nursery schools, to let them realise their dreams and also help stem the malaise of increasing out-of-school children population in Nigeria.
“This largesse should not be limited to public schools alone; the government can collaborate with authorities of private schools by paying them tuition and other allied fees for indigent students and pupils as a way of securing their future”, he admonished.
Oludare also urged the federal government, through the Ministry of Education, to make special votes for research and the advancement of technical education, as a means of giving Nigeria its pride of place in the comity of nations.
He, however, urged Nigerians to endure the hardship occasioned by the removal of fuel subsidy, noting that there is light at the end of the dark tunnel.
“The necessary emergency radical surgical intervention is what President Tinubu is carrying out and I will want to implore Nigerians to be patient with him.
“A patient with a cancer will not tell their doctor to ‘please remove this cancer from my body but I want to feel no pain’. They know there will be pain, there will be blood loss, recovery will be difficult but they endure it all so they can be free of the invasive cancer,” Oludare appraised.
Earlier in her address, the Headmistress of the school, Mrs Rachael Familoye, remarked that Delad Nursary and Primary School had set the pace in Ondo State’s elementary education through high moral standards and employment of qualified tutors.
She also informed that a number of pupils were on scholarship in the school, through the benevolence of its proprietress, Chief (Mrs) Omolade Oludare, a former Tutor General in the Ondo State Teaching Service.