‘30,000 indigent students benefited from Ogun Educash transfer scheme’

The Ogun State Government has said that 20,000 students in tertiary institutions across the country have so far benefited from the ongoing Educash transfer of N50,000 to cushion the current economic crisis.

In the same vein, 10,000 indigent pupils in primary and secondary schools across the state have also benefitted from the N10,000 cash transfer.

The state’s Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology, Prof. Abayomi Arigbabu, disclosed this after monitoring the cash transfer to public primary and secondary schools at the Ogun West Senatorial District on Wednesday.

According to the commissioner, by the end of next week, more students would have benefited from the gesture at both the tertiary and secondary/primary levels, even as he promised that all students captured would be paid.

He said: “I can tell you that for one of the tertiary institutions, we have done 20,000 as of today, and the total for the tertiary institution beneficiaries is a little bit less than 50,000. Hopefully, by the end of next week, we will have reached half of that, which is about 25,000 beneficiaries.

“At Olabisi Onabanjo University (OOU), list of a little bit over 12,000 was sent to us. We have paid just a little bit less than 6,000. The same thing at Tai Solarin University of Education, where we have a little bit less than 8,000. We have tried to make sure we are between the range of 45 per cent and 50 per cent in all the schools.”

Arigbabu also said that the state government would not entertain cash during the ongoing exercise for students in public primary and secondary schools.

He noted that the government would still allow any parent without a bank account to do so as long as they have already been captured for the payment.

“We are not going to pay cash to anybody; we are not going to handle cash. We are going to pay through the accounts. If those concerned do not have an account, they need to open one because it is difficult to trace cash transactions.”