Lagos Govt Executes 1,449 Projects in Schools

Mrs Folasade Adefisayo, Lagos State Commissioner for Education

The Lagos State Government has executed a total of 1449 projects to enhance conducive learning environment in its schools.

Mrs Folasade Adefisayo, Lagos State Commissioner for Education, disclosed this while speaking at the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Forum on Friday in Lagos.

The commissioner said that 1,036 schools benefitted from the projects in 20 local government areas of the state.

“We’ve worked in 1,449 projects and these include; school buildings, renovations, provision of furniture, labs and equipment.

“And the idea behind this projects is to make schools across the state look good and to further create enabling environment for conducive learning both for the students and teachers,” she said.

Adefisayo noted that building of schools “is an ongoing thing; we just opened the Elemoro school with track and field in Ibeju Lekki and we are not relaxing because there are still more to be done.”

Adefisayo said that at present, the state has no fewer than 16,000 teachers and that approval has been given by the state government to always replace retired teachers in secondary schools, particularly in key subjects.

“Gov. Babajide Sanwo-Olu on assumption of office gave approval to recruit and replace retired teachers at every level, so as they keep retiring, we also keep replacing,” she explained.

The commissioner said Sanwo-Olu had presented 12 cars to outstanding teachers to reward excellence in the state teaching service.

She added that over 15,000 teachers across the state had been trained through Eko Excel for improved capacity to deliver quality education to the students.

NAN reports that Eko Excel (Excellence in Child Education and Leaning) is an education reform programme poised to develop more highly skilled teachers.

It includes training, supporting and motivating existing teachers in government schools to boost their ability in helping children learn in positive environment.

The commissioner identified negligence and helicopter parenting by some parents as contributory factors to prevalence of cultism and bullying among students.

Adefisayo said that helicopter parenting had made some students not to be strong to withstand some activities around   them, while negligence parenting had made some students become cultists.

According to her, curbing cultism and bullying among students will not just be by preaching and talking to them alone, but through multi-dimensional approaches.

“Good teaching also helps because when the students are engaged in school, sometimes they don’t want any trouble.

“One thing we have looked at again is to expand the academic curriculum, so that there is something for everybody,” she said.

Adefisayo said that there was the need to find the dichotomy between just the Biology of having children and the spiritual part of raising children.

She said that the state government was also addressing the spiritual part  by making Islamic Religious Knowledge and Christian Religious Knowledge compulsory in junior schools.

The commissioner said that the state government was building sports centres around the state, which would help to engage students and keep them away from cultism and bullying. (NAN)

February 19, 2022