Quality education revolution: A string of firsts in Ondo .

Written by Akinwale Oshodi.

FROM the first day in office, the  administration of  Ondo State Governor, Dr Olusegun Mimiko, did not only mouthed his desire to change the face of Ondo State, he equally put it to practice its vision of making the Sunshine State the best administered state in Nigeria and the cynosure of all eyes, even beyond the shores of the most populous nation in the black world.
The administration, immediately it came on board, in February 2009 made the task of restoring the glory of the education of the state, regarded as critical a must, due to the unimaginable sad situation it met it.
The education sector below the tertiary level was simply in a parlous state. The sorry state of the Inspectorate Unit of the Ministry of Education was unbearable. It became dysfunctional and ineffective to cope with the challenges of supervision in the 21st century.
The resultant effect was that the number of qualified candidates for admission into tertiary institutions fell far the below 20 per cent. It could not have been otherwise. The performance of the students in external qualifying examinations such as WASSCE, NECO-SSCE, UTME and others was appalling. Only 27 per cent of students, who sat for the WAEC in Ondo State between 1999 and 2009, passed English Language and Mathematics. Examinations malpractices also became a norm.
Equally growing at an alarming rate almost out of hand, was the aimless roaming of streets by pupils and students at a time of the day they were supposed to be in class. To worsen the already bad situation was the continued practice of the ineffective Inspectorate System inherited from the British Colonial administration.
Nobody seemed to know when the solution will come or who will put a check on the mess.  Indeed, a monster had emerged in the education sector that no one was fit enough to tame.
After critical assessment of the sector, the Mimiko administration started plotting the ‘war’ graph, drew the operational order and launched a full scale offensive against the rot in the system. Thus, the overhauling of the education system began on the 16th of September, 2010, with the establishment of the Quality Education Assurance Agency (Q. Ed) charged with the primary task of restoring public confidence in this all-important sector.
The ‘battle plan’ also included enrolment drive, adequate sensitisation where there were low enrolment in public primary and secondary schools and a follow up.
Equipped with 245 evaluators, 22 Hilux vans, 22 motorcycles, a millennium compliant headquarters and field offices in the 18 local government areas, the Q.Ed launched an aggressive large scale battle on the ills hitherto plaguing the education sector.
In pursuit of this goal, the agency started to use  the Whole School Evaluation (WSE) instrument which has three components: School Self Evaluation (SSE) being conducted by the school administrators; External Evaluation being conducted by professional evaluators in the agency and the Systematic Evaluation that is conducted for the purpose of recognition/accreditation for Senior Secondary Certificate Examinations (SSCE).
It was actually time for real action. The agency never toyed with the checking of students’ attendance and participation in curricular and co-curricular activities. The teachers are not spared continuous monitoring, all in a bid to ensure full commitment to curriculum development to keep learners in school.
Have these measures actually redeemed the hitherto bad situation? What has been the impact of the ICT-driven solution adopted in the sector?
Findings revealed that since Q. Ed introduced, there has been significant increase in enrolment in places where cluster evaluation was the norm before now. These daily activities have undoubtedly put teachers on their toes in the areas of curriculum delivery from planning stage, preparatory stage, the use of approved national curriculum, development of scheme of work, lesson plan and lesson notes up to the actual delivery, i.e. teaching.
To create conducive teaching and learning environment for both teachers and students, the state government embarked on the construction of over 30 Mega Primary Schools, massive renovation of over 240 secondary schools spread across the state and equally provided relevant books and other teaching aids for better performance.
Three years after, the scheme has restored discipline, confidence and standard to the public schools. Q .Ed was in June 2012 rated high by the Joint Consultative Committee on Education at its Reference Meeting in Lokoja, the Kogi State capital,  through assessment and interaction. It is however not surprising that states in the federation are now eagerly plotting how to adopt the Quality Education Scheme. Another positive development in the scheme is that more public schools in the state have won both national and international competitions.