By Austin Ogwuda
…. says “it is a disservice to allow anybody to beg for what he or she is entitled to or deserve”
Until yesterday, 1st of April 2025, Mr . Austin Oghoro was the Permanent Secretary (PS) Primary Education, Basic and Secondary Education as well as that of Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources.
He was the most senior and longest serving Permanent Secretary in Delta State for 17 years to have succeeded the immediate past Head of Service, Sir Reginald Bayoko but was skipped because he had only just fews days to retire shortly after Bayoko.
He spoke to newsmen on wide range of issues.
Said he, ”My experience has been something personal to me because I tried to mind my business. Yes, it’s been momentous journey, challenges, prospects and of course, benefits.
“I got the job into civil service by the grace of God because of the large number of unemployed graduates at that time. I dedicated my letter of employment to God to see me through. All along, I was driven by the principles of sincerity and passion for the job. It’s a disservice to allow anybody to beg for what he or she is entitled to or deserve. I advise civil servants to enjoy the work they have been employed to do, and trust God to see them through.
“I have put in 35 years of service, and April 1 this year is the terminal date and April 2 (today) is my pulling out ceremony. So, I have achieved so much by way of competence in the service”.
Oghoro carpeted some greedy private school owners for over tasking parents unnecessarily not minding the tough economic realities.
Hear him “The fees that private school owners charge for any level of exams registration is more than five hundred percent of what state government asks them to pay. The same people will rush to the press to say put it in the news that government is asking for money for exams registration.
“We have been calling them for series of meeting. The issue is that private school owners fix their exams registration fee without recourse to government. They don’t even have recourse to PTA in their schools. Federal government does its own; the small one that state government dies, they will be screaming – you want to kill us”.
“Sadly”, he went on, “many of the private school owners don’t give value for money they collect. Just go round private schools in the state. Many don’t have qualified teachers. In education, government allows PPP. There are some areas where there are no public schools. In such situations, you approach government to set up a private school, we give necessary conditions for approval but if you can not meet the conditions, government gives time frame within which to fulfill the conditions as part of measures to ensure standard and quality in education.’
”We as public managers in the education sector, we stand on trial every day. It’s a very pitiable situation. We signed to do the job and we prayed to God to guide us”, he added.
