Oyo State Governor, Engineer Seyi Makinde has said that his administration was ready to collaborate with the British government to enhance training and retraining of teachers in the state.
The Governor, who was speaking while hosting a team of British High Commission officials led the Deputy High Commissioner, Mrs. Harriet Thompson, said that the state was determined to improve the standard of education, on Thursday.
According to a statement signed by the Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, Mr. Taiwo Adisa, Governor Makinde also stated that his administration was ready to collaborate with international organisations to enhance positive growth in the four cardinal programmes of the administration.
He noted that the Oyo State government was ready to leverage on the age-long relationship between Nigeria and the United Kingdom, saying that one of the areas he felt the British government could assist Oyo State was in the area of training for teachers.
“As a government, we have focused on four major areas. One is education because we believe that if we have to take our people out of poverty into prosperity, education is key.
“I am an example because I came from a very humble background. I was given free education in this state. Eventually, I went to the University of Lagos, did my National Service with Shell, worked a little bit there and became a subject-matter expert on field and gas metering.
“I did some training at the Auto Control Centre in Kent on measurement quality and I can stand with anybody from any part of the world to talk about measurement. Meanwhile, this is somebody from a small corner in Oyo State. What brought us to that table is just education.
“So, we believe that if we get it right with education, a lot of our people will willingly take themselves out of poverty by being creative and useful to the state, country and even the world at large.
“So, it is an area which want to explore further to see how we can collaborate and get assistance here from yourselves.”
The Governor explained that the other areas of his administration’s focus included health, agriculture and security.
Earlier, the Deputy High Commissioner of the British High Commission in Lagos, Thomson said that the United Kingdom was open to ensuring that the partnership and cooperation with Oyo State and other states in the South-West become more valuable going forward.
“We are here in the South-West of this country in the last couple of days to understand more about how we can make that partnership useful and relevant as we are going forward rather than just looking backwards.
“We want to ensure that the partnership is valuable to you and to the people of Oyo State in the future as well. Some of the areas we are looking at include a partnership for education and formal learning represented by our colleague here, who has been working with the Oyo State government as well as with others in the region to learn from each other in terms of improving the governance in Oyo State and other states in the South-West.
