Kwara State Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq on Monday paid a congratulatory visit to the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus College in Ilorin to personally commend the students who scored between 300 and 355 in the recently held Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
Rafiu Ajakaye, Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, said the visit was a symbolic gesture to acknowledge the strides of all Kwara pupils across public and private schools who came top in the national examination.
“I am here today on behalf of the people and government of Kwara State to say we are proud of you and all others like you across our state. We are proud of the achievements of this school because you alone have 35 students who scored over 300 in the UTME.
“So, my visit here is to congratulate you and encourage you to do more,” AbdulRazaq said in a brief address to the students of the College.
He charged the students in the lower classes to work harder and surpass this year’s results in the coming years.
“To those of you in junior classes, here and across our state, I want to urge you to do better next year. We know it is a result of hard work and discipline, I congratulate the principal and the staff for the job well done,” the Governor said.
“I also encourage the principal and staff to do peer review among other schools and impart what you have been doing well with others.”
AbdulRazaq commended the school for making the state proud with the excellent results in the national examination, saying the feats, along with other successes of the state, sum up the emergence of Kwara on the national stage as a go-to state for quality education.
The principal of the College, Rev. Sr. Margaret Ihinolurinjan, expressed surprise over the visit and thanked AbdulRazaq for the encouragement.
“We are trying to do our best for these children and to inculcate discipline in them, and make sure we do it the right way, and God is doing the rest. We don’t joke with our discipline with the learning and the teaching we give them. We don’t joke with our curriculum,” she said.
“We have always been grateful to God. We have always had records, but this one is the biggest of all, and it is all over the news. I am so humbled. I appreciate your presence. You are welcome, sir.
“Even at the state level, we have always won the Tax Quiz Competitions organised by the Kwara State Internal Revenue Service (KWIRS).”
Ihinolurinjan promised that the school would continue to make the state proud.
The Governor had earlier issued a congratulatory to all the students from the Kwara, including from public schools, who had excellent results in the national examination, calling it the fruit of hard work of their parents, teachers, and government’s renewed commitment in the education sector.
