New Telegraph

Ondo community seeks take over of school

An agrarian community in Ifedore Local Government Area of Ondo State, Irese, has appealed to the state government to, as a matter of urgent consideration, take over the running of the only community secondary school in the area before it ceased to exist.

 

This is as the community insisted that the call had become expedient in order to check the growing rate of school drop-outs and social vices among youths of the area, since the people could no longer afford to fund the running of the secondary school using only the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) corps members and volunteer teachers.

 

The school, Irese Community Grammar School, was founded in 2014 by a Christian group that observed with dismay the high rate of school drop-outs after primary school education mainly because there was no secondary school in the community, while the closest school is over seven kilometers, thus forcing many of the children to abandon schooling.

 

The appeal was made by a leader in community, Mr. Kola Olupona on behalf of the Regent of Irese, Princess Damilola Falegan, chiefs and other leaders of the community, which is about five kilometers from the Onyearugbulem Market Junction at the Federal Housing Estate (Shagari Village) in Akure, the state capital.

 

In the Letter of Appeal to the state government, which was made available to newsmen in Akure, Olupona recalled that prior to the establishment of the school, there was prevalence of untoward activities such as high rate of sexual immorality/promiscuity among young girls, while the boys took to smoking of weed, liquor addiction, encroachment and unchecked sales of land, and stealing because there was no secondary school in the community and the children were abandoning schooling after primary school.

 

“But, these vices were reduced to the barest minimum following the establishment of the secondary school since the youths no longer have to be idle and loafing around after leaving primary school,” the letter said. He, however, expressed fears that the above gains might be lost unless the government takes over the running of the school as the community could no longer afford to run it using only corps members and volunteer teachers.

 

The school, it was learnt, took off on a makeshift block of an abandoned primary before it relocated to its permanent site following the 16 plots of land donation for the school project by the community. Olupona, who further disclosed that the visits of the former Regent, Princess Rabiat Adeniyi with other community leaders to state government led to the construction of a three-classroom block, which is currently the only building on the permanent site.

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