The Osun Commissioner for Education, Mr. Dipo Eluwole, says more than 11,000 out-of-school children returned to classrooms in 2024 following improvements in infrastructure and teaching across the state.
In an interview on Friday in Osogbo, Eluwole said the reintroduction of the school feeding programme also boosted enrollment, especially in rural communities.
He blamed the increase in dropouts on previous administrations, noting that the construction of mega schools far from communities forced many pupils to stop schooling due to transportation costs.
“Because Osun is an agrarian state, many children hawk to support their parents. For poor households struggling to eat, paying transport fares to attend distant mega schools was too much, so many parents withdrew their children,” Eluwole said.
According to him, Gov. Ademola Adeleke’s administration prioritized returning the children to school by reviving the free feeding scheme and rehabilitating abandoned community schools.
He disclosed that 203,739 pupils across 1,850 primary schools were currently benefitting from the programme, which has also created jobs for 2,470 food vendors.
The commissioner added that all public schools in the state had been directed to engage in farming under the “grow what you eat, eat what you grow” policy, with support from the Ministry of Agriculture through free seedlings and tractors.
(NAN)