IgboleEkiti Educational Link Forum: The Fountain Spring Forth Again

Over the weekend, Igbole Ekiti, the home town of Ojo Ugbole, the first African Professor of Geo-physics, and a community known for her intellectual prowess and academic alacrity, held her maiden edition of a platform that aims at restoring the lost glory of the state.
Tagged ‘Igbole Ekiti Educational Link Forum’-a platform where educational icons in the community are brought together with both parents and students under the same roof where the former shared their experiences and insights with the latter with the aim of transferring values, virtues and Ekiti spirit into the current generation that has derailed from the virtue of commitment and spirit of excellence that define Ekiti people.

While speaking on the general theme of the forum ‘Restoring Values, Virtues and Ekiti Spirit into Education’, the Chief speaker of the occasion, a First Class historian and retired school principal, Chief Anthony Ashaolu stated that,“the Ekiti spirit of old was a fighting spirit. The spirit made Ekiti students an object of envy and admiration in all institutions of learning throughout the world as they would always excel in any field of academic pursuit you found them. Failure at any level was a taboo”, he said.

The Honourable Commissioner for Health in Ekiti State, Dr.Olurotimi Ojo while speaking on the need to reward excellence among all the stakeholders in education stated that, motivation and reward of excellence should cut across all the stakeholders in the sector. He also used the occasion to announce a N50, 000 reward for best teacher of Ojo Ugbole High School, best student in each of the literary clubs that were newly introduced and an undisclosed amount for the best parent in subsequent edition of the forum.

While describing the platform as a unique one that has no precedence in Nigeria, Professor Kolawole Ojo of Federal University of Agriculture stated that it is not enough to continue to invest in the physical infrastructure alone because the true propeller of success in the glorious generation lies in the value system.

Speaking on the need to restore values, virtues and the Ekiti spirit into the young ones, the organiser of the forum, Mr. Oluwagbohunmi Aduralere said that,Ekiti state is reputed to have the highest density of scholars per square metre in Nigeria but today, the story has changed. In 2003, the Fountain of knowledge was rated no 35 out of the 36 states of the federation in WAEC result. “The fundamental problem that is confronting education sector in the state today is that; our students have lost touch with the value of excellence, virtue of commitment and the spirit of excellence that define us unique people”, he stated.

He also argued that, these social currents are the latent factors that helped the likes of Ojo Ugbole, the first Professor of Geo-Physics in Africa; Prof.Olubumo, the first professor of Mathematics in Nigeria and others to reach the pinnacles of their careers despite the fact that they all studied under harsh and dehumanising conditions.

In his words, “the older generation lacked all the basic infrastructures and conditions that could help them succeed, yet, they were all operating at more than 1000 per cent on the intellectual scale. In contrast, the current generation has access to good schools, books, good cloths, good curriculum, and the most important infrastructure in the twenty first century which is ‘the internet’, yet, they are operating at less than 30 per cent on the intellectual scale because they lack values, virtues, and vision”, he stated.

My Mum's hometown.