The 1976/1981 ex-students of Federal Government College, Odoogbolu, Ogun State, have commissioned a freshly renovated female hostel at their alma mater.
According to them, the initiative will create a more favourable learning environment for students while also complementing the government’s efforts to provide affordable and quality education.
Speaking at the commissioning, Ayoola Olaitan, President of the 1976/1981 set, stated that the gesture was vital to care of girl child.
He said,: “These are young girls that have left their parents, I think we owe them a duty to put them in a comfortable environment.
“They will have this kind of mentality that they are comfortable and they have to shun all vices we don’t expect them of doing.
“There are certain things we’re expecting them to be doing right now, like focusing on their studies, and by providing this kind of conducive environment for them, I’m sure it will have positive impact on them.
“As a father of girls myself, i believe that if you don’t give your girl child what they need, somebody else will give them and when they give them, it will come with a condition and we don’t want our girl child to grow up like that.”
Speaking on rationale behind the project, Ayoola said: “The motivation behind the project is that as a set, we take particular interest in girl child, we believe we can make their environment in school more conducive for learning.
“We came to the school and we met with the Principal and I must say the Principal has tried a lot for the school because when we were here it wasn’t like this, it was more barbaric than this, so we decided to improve the facility, federal government is busy on other things, so we decided to assist and keep assisting because like I always say, government alone can not do everything.
“So this is one of the beginning of many things to be done, this is like a deposit of many things, we will still do more both as a set and as the national body of this great alma mater of ours.
“The project is total renovation of the girls hostel, what we are standing on right now used to be a pieces of earth, but it’s now a brand new floor with painting, my classmates decided to do all these for the girls hostel here, this is a quadrangle where they can play and read their books, the ambience is nice, this will surely assist them positively.”
Chairman of the renovation project, Eguarekhide Longe, urged Nigerians to join hands with government and come up with initiative aim at transforming public schools.
While commending donors of the project, the Director/Principal of the College, Akinpelu Amos also called on other stakeholders to come on board and assist government in provision of basic amenities that the school is currently lacking. He solicited help on procurement of 32-seater Coaster bus for the school.