Ogun State Government, on Wednesday, March 13, 2024, flagged off the payment of N10,000 cash award to 100,000 primary and secondary school students in public schools across the state.

The payment, according to the Ogun State Government, is in fulfilment of the promise made by Governor Dapo Abiodun to pay N10,000 to indigent pupils and students in the state’s primary and secondary schools.

Speaking while monitoring the disbursement of the money in some schools in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, the Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology, Prof. Abayomi Arigbabu, said the payment was one of the strategies used by the governor to provide succour to parents as a result of the present economic situation in the country.

Arigbabu noted that the gesture was meant to provide succour to pupils and their parents.

He said: “In view of the economic realities in the country, the governor decided to provide succour to the people of the state using multiplicity approaches to achieve this.

“He believes that another strategy that could be used which has never been used by any government before is the health and education sectors to reach the populace. Through the education sector, you can truly reach out to those who need the palliative.

Economic hardship: 60,000 Ogun students to get N50,000 EduCash award

“We have over 2, 000 primary and secondary schools in all the four divisions of the state, and 100,000 learners in these schools would receive N10,00 each.”

He emphasised that the government decided to pay through parents whose children are in public primary and secondary schools as the children do not have bank accounts due to their age.

On how the beneficiaries were chosen, the commissioner said the process was objective, adding that it was easy to come up with the list of indigent students as teachers who are part of the school system were given the burden to find the indigent students as they are the closest to them.

“That is why we have not involved anybody who is not in the school system. The school system is not political. Civil servants are not supposed to be politicians, so the principals and the teachers have selected these children based on the fact that they have always seen them to be indigent students,” Arigbabu said.

He added that 50,000 students of Ogun State origin in both public and private tertiary institutions have been captured to be paid N50,000 each.

The payment, he said, has started with about 20,000 students to be covered by the end of the week.

Arigbabu further revealed that five exercise books would be given to 850,000 primary and secondary school students, including those who did not benefit from the N10,000, adding that the governor was also preparing another package for the education sector.

Speaking, the Principal of Baptist Boys High School (Junior), Lasabi Olarenwaju, noted that some of the beneficiaries were chosen based on the inability of their parents to cater for their basic needs, adding that the gesture by Governor Abiodun would go a long way in helping the beneficiaries.

Iyabo Kushimo, whose child attends Ebenezer Baptist Nursery and Primary School, Saje in Abeokuta, confirmed the receipt of the N10,000 cash award, saying she would use the money to buy school sandals and use the other part to pay her child’s transport fare.

The Star