Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, the Lagos State governor, on Saturday reaffirmed his administration’s plan to transform the state’s educational sector, promising to increase government’s investment for the good of the pupils.
Over 3,000 teachers from various schools and education districts across the state converged at De Blue Roof of the Lagos Television, Ikeja, where the governor formally launched the EKOEXCEL, a teachers’ professional development and training programme.
Earlier, primary school teachers went through a two-week training process, organised by the State Universal Basic Education Board (LSUBEB) to increase capacity and develop manpower of teachers in the state.
Sanwo-olu noted that at the end, over 14,000 primary school teachers would have benefited from the initiative, while over 500,000 pupils would have been positively impacted.
The governor said: “I am particularly happy that this programme is holding at a time when all hands are on deck to ensure that the quality of teaching and learning is improved across all our schools in the state.
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“As a responsible government, we will continue the massive investment in this sector, with the training and retraining of our teachers, making the sector more ICT compliant, exposing our teachers to international best practices as well as ensuring that our schools become a destination for work and learning.
“We resolved to address these problems through combining innovative technological approach that is scientifically based, with effective training and empowering our teachers in every local government to strengthen their capacity and deliver quality education to our children.”
The governor, in a bid to encourage teachers and make good examples from outstanding ones, said the state government would identify the best Head Teachers in all the 20 LGs and 37 LCDAs and reward them with a car each.
He noted that his administration would not pay lip service to the repositioning of the educational sector, noting that it is the reason the education ministry got a significantly higher envelope in the 2020 budget.
The governor also promised that teachers would undergo free sight assessment and reading glasses would be provided for every teacher that requires it to be able to discharge their duties effectively.
EKOEXCEL, which is Excellence in Child Learning and Education Programme, is a Lagos State primary education transformation initiative.
With the EKOEXCEL Programme, over 14,000 Head Teachers and teachers would be moved from analogue to digital teaching, using tablets and updated curriculum. Over 3,000 primary school teachers from 300 public primary schools had been captured under the pilot scheme.
An initiative of the Sanwo-Olu administration, the EKOEXCEL was aimed at developing a highly-skilled teaching workforce by training, supporting and motivating Lagos State teachers to succeed in the classroom of tomorrow and enhance the State Basic Education curriculum, thereby empowering children to compete effectively in the world of work.
The programme would equip teachers with skills to deliver value, empower pupils with requisite knowledge to improve education and help in sustaining the growth of Lagos State as a leading knowledge driven city and economy in the world.
