Ayodele Olalere
The Commissioner for Education, Lagos State, Mrs Folasade Adefisayo on Friday said the state government executed 1,097 projects across state owned public schools in the last two years.
She also said about 25,000 pupils were trained in computer coding among other basic computer skills.
Adefisayo spoke at the annual ministerial briefing to mark Gov. Sanwo-Olu’s second year in office.
According to her, other achievements of her ministry under the years in review include the Digital Skills Initiative Lagos (DSIL) where a total of 120,000 students and pupils across 720 schools and across the six Educational Districts of the State, were trained
They were trained in the areas of Basic Computer Skills, Coding Skills, Scratch, Cloud Services and World Wide Web, Internet technology, Interactive and Visualized Coding, among others.
She said the program is aimed at providing education on computer networking and coding skills, computer skills, and advance worldwide web and internet technology such as cloud computing and virtualization.
The Phase 2 of the Initiative, she added, was aimed at capturing out of school children and equip them with knowledge, skills, and know-how that would enable them to thrive in the technology space and entrepreneurship
She further said the Lagos State Scholarship Board paid a total sum of N218.8million as bursary award to a total number of 6,411 students of the State’s origin in various Higher institutions of learning to support their education.
In addition, a sum of N217.73m was paid as scholarship award to a total of 981 beneficiaries.
It was gathered that in response to the challenges of restrictions in gathering posed by COVID-19 which led to the shut down of schools, the State implemented a community drive in communities to teach kids at their home how to code using Python, Scratch and exposing them to the World wide web and Cloud services while adhering to safety protocols.
Activities of the Ministry within the period under review centred on improving quality of primary education with 15,000 teachers trained and equipped with technology; improving capacity and welfare of students; investment in technology; review and optimization of school curriculum; public-private partnership.
Others are enhancing special needs of education division; improving access to education for children in underserved communities; upgrade and expansion of education resource centre; improving the efficacy of the education quality assurance unit, among others.
Within the period under review, a total number of 1,097 projects in 970 public schools were executed by the State Government under multi agency execution delivery.
A breakdown of construction and upgrade of public schools’ infrastructures revealed that construction, renovation and rehabilitation works were executed on 322 dilapidated public schools, 300 classrooms, seven new hostels blocks built; with 87,000 dual composite furniture for 775 primary and secondary schools.
Others include the renovation and upgrade of 41 Libraries and ICT centers in public secondary schools to best standard across five Education Districts; approval of additional 66 Public Schools Libraries for renovation and installation of the state of the Art ICT facilities.
Also, was the Ready-Set Work – Jobs Initiative Lagos – (JIL) aimed at preparing final year students and those in penultimate classes in all the State owned Higher Institutions for immediate entry into the workforce as employees and employers of labor by equipping them with market aligned knowledge, soft skills, and business tools.
Under the Initiative, a total number of 28,000 final year and penultimate classes students were trained across all the State-owned Tertiary Institutions.
Areas on which they were trained to increase their employability skills include entrepreneurship, work readiness tools, soft skills, market-aligned courses, and project success.
Mrs Adefisayo said several school buildings were renovated in all the educational districts while plans are on the way to create the schools.
While giving the scorecard of his achievements, the Special Adviser to the Governor on Education, Mr. Tokunbo Wahab, said the “the Jobs initiative Lagos programme successfully trained over 28,000 participants across the eight higher institutions in Lagos State and have placed over 100 successful participants on job Internship which some of the participants have been retained and have jobs today.
“Despite the onset of a global Pandemic, we successfully trained over 25,000 students in both primary and secondary schools within the 6 educational districts. We have introduced 25,000 pupils to basic computer training and an introduction to coding.”
“We renovated and equipped Epe Divisional Library Phase 1, which is 100% completed and Badagry Divisional Library is also about 80% completed.” he added.
He disclosed that the Lagos State Government and Lagos State University (LASU) during the year under review succeeded in securing collaboration with an internationally renowned University, Cornell University, New York, United States of America to establish a world-class Business School, which is known as LASU Business School.
Other projects where successes were recorded within the period under review include: Learning Platform with upgraded curriculum; Project Implementation with Stakeholders OSAE, TGPS and School Heads; Change in Learning Approach; Community Engagement; Delivery of 250 units of desktop computers to schools across the six educational districts.
Others were the graduation of a total of 1,283 trainees who graduated from the seven Vocational Training Centres in March 2020; enrollment of 32,288 Adult Learners with 28,845 completing the 9 months Literacy Class during the period under review.