Gov. Abiodun Assents to Education, Skills Trust Fund Bill

By Timothy Odedina

Ogun State Governor, Prince Dapo Abiodun, has assented to the State Education and Skills Trust Fund Bill, providing a new legal framework for sustainable financing of education and skills development across the state.

Abiodun signed the bill into law on Friday at the Governor’s Office, Oke-Mosan, Abeokuta, following its passage by the Ogun State House of Assembly.

The legislation is expected to provide an additional funding window for the education sector beyond the state’s annual budgetary allocation, while supporting infrastructure development, bursaries, teacher support, maintenance and vocational training.

Speaking with journalists after the signing ceremony, the Speaker of the Ogun State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Oludaisi Elemide, said the new law was designed to strengthen the quality and effectiveness of education delivery in the state.

Elemide said the legislation followed extensive consultations with members of the public and relevant stakeholders, noting that its objective was to make education “more meaningful, more qualitative and more constructive.”

“We are just trying to make education more meaningful, more qualitative and more constructive. It will be more encompassing; that is what the bill is all about,” the Speaker said.

He expressed optimism that the effective implementation of the law would further strengthen the state’s education sector and sustain Ogun’s reputation as a major education destination in Nigeria.

Elemide, however, called for greater participation by the private sector in funding education, stressing that government alone could not shoulder the financial responsibilities required to effectively develop the sector.

“The private people too need to contribute. After all, they are the ones that will inherit these people after being educated,” he said.

Also speaking, the Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology, Prof. Abayomi Arigbabu, said the Trust Fund would cover both formal and informal education, with particular attention to skills acquisition and vocational development.

According to him, the fund would create an alternative source of financing for the sector, complementing the state’s normal budgetary allocation.

He listed school infrastructure, bursaries, teacher support and maintenance among areas that could benefit from the new funding mechanism.

“In other words, we have put in place a mechanism of ensuring that education can also still be funded through another source different from the normal budgetary allocation,” Arigbabu said.

The commissioner explained that the state had previously operated the initiative under an executive bill signed by the governor three years ago, adding that the passage of the legislation by the House of Assembly had now given the Trust Fund stronger legal backing.

Arigbabu further said the law would facilitate the integration of informal education into the state’s education system through the re-engineering of the traditional apprenticeship model.

He disclosed that over 9,000 youths had already received training in various vocational skills under the state’s skills-development initiatives.

The commissioner said the new Trust Fund would therefore provide additional support for expanding vocational education, apprenticeship programmes and other skills-development initiatives across Ogun State.