A Non-Governmental Organisation, G-rite Network, has trained over 60 public secondary school principals on school development in Ondo State.

The training tagged “Fostering the Right Partnership for School Development in Ondo State,” which was a dialogue between public school principals in Ondo Central Senatorial District and potential partners, was designed to bridge the gap in the lapses in school administration.

According to the coordinator of the programme, Olabanji Kolawole, the organisation has been in existence since 2013 to drive development in the education sector.

Kolawole explained that the purpose of the programme was to assist public secondary school principals to identify and utilise opportunities around them and to interact with development partners for the benefit of their schools.

He said: “Over my engagement for the past 11 years, we have engaged critical and major spokespersons in the education sector in Ondo State, and in our engagement, we have identified some lapses. That is why a programme like this is coming up to help fix those lapses.

“There are issues we have identified, and we know that the bulk of the work is with the principal, which is why we are engaging them and also inviting development partners. We also identify some potential partners from different fields that can partner with schools in achieving and realising their dreams and also helping them to do their job well.”

Kolawole also revealed that there are plans to extend such a programmeme to other senatorial districts in the state due to the massive turnout of principals and the success of the programmeme.

“In the entire Ondo Central Senatorial District, we have about 87 public secondary schools, and we have in attendance about 62 principals seated. So I think that is a good turnout. With what we are able to achieve today, we are extending this to Ondo South and Ondo North Senatorial District,” he disclosed.

In her reaction, one of the principals from Ifedore Local Government Area, Esther Olowoparija, thanked the organiser of the programmeme, stating that the programmeme has given them opportunities to learn and interact with potential partners.

Olowopariola, however, lamented that there are lots of challenges being faced in the schools as they battled to relate with students from different backgrounds and appealed that the government should do more.