Yakubu Busari,.
The President, Rotaract Club of Jos, (District 9125) Shere hills, Josephine Ochai has lamented the deplorable nature of falling standard of education bedeviling Nigeria’s educational standards, cutting across the whole spectrum.
She disclosed that Nigeria’s populace is suffering from the shackles of illiteracy, with most public schools being underfunded resulting in poor patronage.
Rotaract Ochai made this known in Jos, at the presentation of Pocket Dictionaries to the 1st, 2nd and third winners of “Spelling the Bee competition” organized for the J.S.S 3 of Government Secondary School, Jos Township.
Ochai stresses that critical of the low capacity building, poor funding, staffing and poor infrastructure given to basic education,.
Rotaract Ochai called on government at all levels, religious bodies, corporate organizations and wealthy individuals to complement Rotary / Rotaract in ensuring that every child has access to standard education through increased funding of public schools.
She advised students to “use this rare privilege very wisely”, equally cautioned the students that “the dictionaries are not to be sold, torn, left unused”, admonishing their teachers to “ensure proper use and constantly train the students in vocabulary”.
Ochai noted that “proper choice of words, spoken English and address are almost the first cadre that defines you and how far you shall go in achieving your set goals in life”.
In all, three contestants emerged winners, led by Master Gabriel Andrew of J.S.S 3C whose Class received fifty (50) Pocket Oxford Dictionaries while the other two received thirty (30) and twenty (20) respectively. The winners were equally issued certificates of merit.
It would be recalled that one of Rotary International areas of focus is Basic Education and Literacy.
