Oyo State Governor, Mr. Seyi Makinde on Monday approved the release of the sum of N526 million as running costs for the 2,500 primary schools and about 640 secondary schools owned by the state government.

The state government also confirmed that the sum of N400 million has been advanced to the secondary schools, while the primary schools got the sum of N126 million.

The money is to cover the running grants of the schools for the first term of the 2019/2020 academic session.

According to the state government, principals of secondary schools as well as heads of primary schools across the state have been mandated to open accounts to receive the running grants.

There are 640 secondary schools spread across the state, which have already started benefitting from the N1,000 per child per term budget for the schools.

“With the number of students in the secondary schools put at 400,000 and at N1,000 per child, the state would be spending the sum of N400 million a term on the secondary schools. The final figure for secondary schools would terminate at N1.2 billion per session,” the governor said.

He added that the N126 million approved for the primary schools has been released to the heads of the various schools.

While the state’s Ministry of Education is managing the disbursements to secondary schools, the State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) is handling the disbursement to primary schools.

The governor added: “We want to charge all stakeholders in the school system to judiciously apply the funds. They should also take note of the fact that the government will demand accountability on every kobo released to the schools.

“The government will deal decisively with anyone caught attempting to derail the free and qualitative education policy or extorting students under whatever guise.”