The alumni of Awori College under the umbrella of Awori College Old Students Association Lagos on Sunday announced plans to build an Information and Communication Technology centre valued N245 million in the school.

The chairman of the association, Cornelius Ojelabi, disclosed this during the association’s general meeting and project launch on Sunday in Lagos.

Mr Ojelabi, who is also the Lagos chairman of the All Progressives Congress, said the centre would serve as a computer-based test centre for JAMB and WAEC examinations.

The alumni plan to deliver the centre by September when the school will mark its 50th anniversary.

He said, “Since the creation of the school in 1974, it has produced a deputy governor who is presently a sitting senator in the upper chamber, commissioners, lawmakers, engineers, doctors, chairmen in local governments and others.

“We believe this is the time to give back to the school by establishing a modern ICT centre where students of the school will have the opportunity to go through computer-based study. Education is knowledge, when you have education, you will have the knowledge to do many things. When we look back, we have every cause to glorify God. About 44 sets of students have graduated from this school and we should know that Awori College groomed us to become what we are today. Then we have to ask ourselves what we can contribute positively to the development of the school.’’

Mr Ojelabi said that the school would mark its 50th anniversary in September.

He said that they had set up a three-man committee to look into a befitting project to mark the anniversary headed by Dr Waliu Odukale.

Mr Odukale, in his remarks, said that the committee, at early stage, considered many projects ranging from laboratory, recreation facilities, fencing and others before they carefully went for ICT/CBT centre.

“We decided to go to the centre to build the students’ morale and prepare them for future challenges in computer based examination,” he said.

The Lagos State Commissioner for Tertiary Institutions, Tolani Sule, an old student of the school, said the contribution of old students had become so important.

According to him, this is why they had come together to see how they could be impactful and help the school.

He said, “Our contribution now is putting up a world class ICT/CBT centre for the school. The trend now is about ICT teaching and learning, even WAEC has announced that its examination from this year will be ICT based like Jamb.

“We don’t have to wait for government, that is why we are coming together, putting up our resources to upgrade our school, and we are starting with ICT. This project will be one of the projects that we will hand over to the management of the school and the students by September 2024, when we are celebrating its 50th anniversary.’’

The Chairman, Ori-Ade, Local Council Development Area, Ramotalai Hassan, said that funding of the projects would be easy considering the personalities that the college had produced.

The chairman promised that the project would be delivered in September, during the 50th anniversary celebration.

The Osolu of Erewe kingdom in Ojo Local Government Area, Lagos, Oba Abideen Durosinmi, also an old student, commended the alumni association for coming up with a laudable project to mark the 50th anniversary of the school.

He prayed that God would give them the power to complete the project.

(NAN)