Lagos State unveils program to reduce number of out-of-school children

The Lagos State government is poised to reduce the number of out-of-school children through the EkoExcel programme geared towards creating public awareness on school enrolment come 2022.

The campaign powered by the Lagos State Universal Basic Education Board (LASUBEB) is also aimed at engaging parents and communities on the need and importance of education and connecting people to the government’s economic growth agenda via the transformation of the education system.

The programme which is in-line with LASUBEB’s ‘Leave no child behind policy’ which is geared toward boosting academic excellence from a foundational level in Lagos public schools is being showcased on billboards, street lamp banners, radio jingles, television interviews, and commercials as well as social media engagements with reputable influencers.

Wahab Alawiye-King, the executive chairman of LASUBEB speaking on the awareness campaign said it was in fulfillment of Babajide Sanwo-Olu’s promise of quality education to all Lagos pupils as spelled out in his THEMES agenda.

“Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu is very passionate about basic education and his dream is to reduce the number of out-of-school children to the minimum while deploying the latest technology for instruction in schools. We cannot afford to fail in the task he has entrusted into our care, hence our effort to make Lagosians know more about EkoExcel and its benefits,” he said.

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Adebayo Adefuye, a permanent board member of LASUBEB also buttressed the need to convince parents and guardians that were yet to enroll their children in government schools to do so as they are assured of quality instruction.

“Our public schools in Lagos are now at par with their private counterparts, so there’s no need to keep children at home while looking for money to pay their fees in private schools. Public schools, particularly those in EkoExcel have e-learning devices, so parents, guardians, please enroll your children in our schools. You won’t regret it. Education is the future and the present administration recognises that hence the massive investments in it,” Adefuye stated.

The EkoExcel programme was launched in 2019 by the Babajide Sanwo-Olu administration to provide quality education to both the rich and the poor as well as up-skill teachers leveraging technology. So far, over 12,000 headteachers and teachers have been moved from analogue to digital teaching, using tablets and updated curriculum.

More than 14,000 public primary school teachers from 1,009 public primary schools have been captured under the scheme. Besides, the education reform programme has recorded remarkable gains in boosting the teacher-pupil interaction through technology (eLearning) in the state primary schools.

The transformational intervention has also enhanced uniformity and strict adherence to the curriculum with teachers’ tablets preloaded with lessons and content that can be effectively monitored for standardisation across all the state’s 1,009 public primary schools.