Airtel Completes Reconstruction of Adopted Schools in Ogun, Imo, Cross River

 

   Airtel Nigeria has continued to blaze a remarkable trail in the campaign to resuscitate foundational education in Nigeria with the completion of reconstruction works in its adopted schools in Ogun, Imo and Cross River states.

The schools were taken over last year under Airtel’s Adopt-a-School programme; a CSR initiative that seeks to offer first class learning facilities and opportunities to children in far flung places where quality education is hard to come by at the foundational level.

Under the programme, Airtel selects primary schools in distant locations across the country and breathe more life into them; renovating the buildings and providing teaching materials and staff among other interventionist gestures.

Among the current set of completed school projects under the programme are St. John’s Primary School, Ijebu-Igbo in Ijebu-North local government of Ogun State, Presbyterian Primary School, Ediba, Abii Local Government Area, Cross River State and Amumara Town Primary School, Ezinihite, Mbaise Local Government Area in Imo State.

The schools have all been slated for immediate commissioning by Governors Ibukun Amosun of Ogun State, Rochas Okorocha of Imo State and Liyel Imoke of Cross River State respectively.

Speaking on the completion of the projects, Segun Ogunsanya, the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Airtel Nigeria explained that the company’s Adopt-a-School programme was conceived to lend a weighty hand and complement the efforts of government to turn around  the nation’s education sector.

According to him, “At Airtel Nigeria, we take cognizance of the fact that foundational education is the most critical stage in the learning curve of a child and a lot of things could go wrong if not properly handled at that stage. It is at this stage that the child can develop the capacity for learning which would become handy at the primary and tertiary levels. Once a child misses it at this stage, he is in a race against time.”

Mr. Ogunsanya further pointed out that Airtel felt obliged to intervene in the nation’s education sector because it had become clear to all that “it is no longer fashionable to sit back and bemoan the state of things in the country. Every responsible corporate body must work to establish the change we seek. It is even more imperative now that we all know that government cannot do it all alone,” he further observed.

Ogunsanya who assumed leadership of Airtel in the first week of January this year further explained that schools acquired under the Adopt-a-School programme would be provided with school uniforms for the pupils, furniture, curriculum and non-curriculum text books, school bags, teaching aids and other learning materials.

It would be recalled that Airtel, two years ago, commissioned a multi-million naira ultra-modern blocks of classrooms, offices and laboratory facilities at Oremeji Primary School, Ajegunle in Ajeromi-Ifelodun Local Government Area of Lagos as the pilot project in the Adopt-a-School program.