We will eradicate out-of-school syndrome in Lagos -Sanwo-Olu

Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu on Tuesday said that his government would commit more resources to ensure all out-of-school children in the State returned back to the classroom.

Governor Sanwo-Olu also emphasised the need to collaborate with stakeholders in the education sector to register more schools that would be monitored by the government in order to check how they are impacting on the students.

The governor gave this indication at the opening session of the 2022 Lagos State Education Summit, with the theme; ‘Creating a sustainable Fit-For-Purpose Education Model’.

He stressed that his government has invested immensely in the education sector in the last three years, even as he emphasised the commitment to continue to prioritize the development of the sector through an increase in the budget.

“This government has completed over 1,000 education projects in the last three years because improved education is one of the legacies we wish to leave behind. And we are also happy because the Summit came at the right time when the state has recorded improvement in the West African Examination Council, WAEC, results from 40 percent to 80 percent.

“Education is not just a pillar in one of our THEMES agenda, it’s one of the dividends of democracy and one of the cardinal objectives of our administration. We see it as one of the tools that can end poverty in our system. We are not paying lip service to education, we are taking it seriously. Education has continued to receive an increased budget in our administration,” Sanwo-Olu said

The governor who joined the event virtually, added that his administration has improved the learning environment and promised to do more in the coming years.

“We believe we can do more. At the end of the Summit, we can have a real conversation with the private schools and work with them to ensure we get more out of Out-Of-School children,” he added.

In her address of welcome, Commissioner for Education, Mrs Folasade Adefisayo, said that the need for Nigeria to take cognizance of a fit-for-purpose education model become imperative in order to protect the future of the country.

Adefisayo noted that Nigeria has myriad of problems that needed to be resolved in the education sector, stressing that the summit was organised to find solutions to some of the challenges.

She said Lagos is an important player in education in Nigeria being the sixth largest economy in Africa and everything must be done to secure it’s future.

“This Summit is about audacity. Some of the outcomes of this Summit will contribute to the process of solving education problems in Nigeria. The focus is not on the problems but now we want to come up with solutions. We want practical ideas that the state can implement. We are ready to listen.

“The Summit is also bringing to the fore a very important conversation to make sure that our educational levels from the Primary, Secondary and Tertiary is fit-for-purpose. That is the main thrust of the conversion that we have been having at the summit.
“We know that what we are doing is good and we need to do a lot a lot more and we need more partners and so that we don’t keep talking to ourselves,” she said