Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu has said that his government is voting for more resources to eradicate the scourge of out-of-school children in the state.
He made the disclosure, Tuesday, at the opening session of the 2022 Lagos State Education Summit, with the theme: “creating a sustainable fit-for-purpose education model”.
Sanwo-Olu also pointed out the need for collaboration with stakeholders in the education sector in order to register more schools, which must be effectively monitored by the government to ensure adequate impartation of knowledge to their students.
According to the governor, his administration in the last three years, has invested enormous resources in the education sector by way of improved budgetary allocation, with the objective to boost development and encourage a better learning environment.
He said over 1,000 education projects had been undertaken in three years in the belief that education is one of the legacies his administration can leave behind.
“We are also happy because this summit comes at the right time when the state has recorded improvement in the West African Examination Council, WAEC, results from 40 percent to 80 percent.
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“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,” he added.
Sanwo-Olu, who joined the event virtually, said the summit offered opportunity for a conversation with private schools and to work with them to get more out-of-school children back to the classroom.
Speaking also, Folasade Adefisayo, the commissioner for education, emphasised the need for Nigeria to take cognizance of a fit-for-purpose education model, saying it was the way to protect the future of the country.
Adefisayo lamented 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 described Lagos as an important player in education in the country, 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,” she noted.
