Ogun State Governor, Dapo Abiodun, has signed the State Education and Skills Trust Fund Bill into law, establishing a framework for sustainable funding and improved management of education and skills development in the state.
Speaking with journalists on Friday after the signing ceremony at the Governor’s Office, Oke-Mosan, Abeokuta, Speaker of the Ogun State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Oludaisi Elemide, said the law would strengthen the delivery of quality education and improve learning outcomes across the state.
Elemide said the legislation was aimed at making education “more meaningful, more qualitative and more constructive,” adding that it followed extensive consultations with members of the public and relevant stakeholders.
He expressed optimism that effective implementation of the law would further strengthen Ogun’s education sector and sustain the state’s position as a leading education destination in Nigeria.
The Speaker, however, called for increased private-sector participation, stressing that the huge resources required to adequately fund education could not be provided by government alone.
Also speaking, the Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology, Prof. Abayomi Arigbabu, said the Trust Fund would cover both formal and informal education, with emphasis on skills acquisition and vocational development.
According to him, the fund would provide an additional source of financing beyond regular budgetary allocations and support areas including school infrastructure, bursaries, teacher support and maintenance.
Arigbabu explained that the state had previously operated the Trust Fund under an executive bill signed by the governor three years ago, but the passage of the legislation by the House of Assembly would now provide stronger legal backing.
He added that the law would facilitate the integration of informal education into the state’s education system through the re-engineering of the traditional apprenticeship model.
The commissioner disclosed that more than 9,000 youths had so far been trained in various vocations under the state’s skills-development initiatives.
He said the Education and Skills Trust Fund would therefore provide an additional funding mechanism for expanding informal education, vocational training and other skills-development programs across Ogun State.
