Kwara State governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq yesterday 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).
The governor said his visit to the school 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.
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.
“I also encourage the principal and staff to do peer review among other schools and impart what you have been doing well with others,” the governor said.
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. Sister 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.
“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),” she added.
Ihinolurinjan promised that the school would continue to make the state proud.
