By Edith Igbokwe and Motolani AbdulGafar
The Elewu of Ewu Kingdom, His Royal Majesty, Oba Shakirudeen Kuti Erufa 1, has charged the government to upgrade public primary schools to encourage parents to enrol their wards.
He made the statement in support of the advocacy by Eko Excel for more wards to be enrolled in the government primary schools across Oshodi-Isolo Local Government Area.
Elewu said the public primary schools in the local government area need to be upgraded, noting that the structures in some of the schools have become dilapidated.
Though he commended the effort of the local government towards primary education, he demanded more to raise the standard to compete with the contemporary schools.
He promised to play his role by sensitising the community members to patronise public schools.
He, therefore, charged the management of Eko Excel to also do its part in raising the standards of public primary schools through teacher training in digital technology.
Eko Excel is an education reform programme that is successfully developing more highly skilled teachers; by training, supporting and motivating existing government teachers to succeed in their classrooms.
Meanwhile, one of the supervisors at Eko Excel, Monica Obi, told ECHONEWS that the system of public primary schools in Lagos State has positively changed to meet up with the standard in private schools.
According to her, such changes include the digital system of operation through the use of tablets by teachers to deliver lessons, teacher training, skill acquisition centres for pupils: home economics, art and craft.
Equally speaking, the Lagos State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) Supervisor of schools in Oshodi-Isolo, Mrs Nafisat Akinsola encouraged parents and guardians to enrol their wards in the public primary schools.
According to her, Lagos State Government has, in the last two years, focused on the transformation of the educational sector in a redefined way.
Akinsola said a good education reform programme such as the Eko Excel has been introduced into the system to develop highly skilled teachers through training, supporting and motivating them to succeed in classroom activities.
She noted that part of the training was to provide teachers with tablets to understand new teaching skills and ways of impacting their pupils.
In her words: “The idea of Eko Excel is that all primary school teachers will have a single means of identifying what their curriculum will be and be able to time in and time out.
“The principals and vice-principals will also have their monitoring tablets to check on activities of every teacher under them to know which teacher uploaded and treated the lessons while monitoring them off-site.”
She stated that the project is beneficial because it is set to create an enabling environment for pupils to love school and their teachers so that their cognitive reasoning is enhanced which is why they are encouraging all residents to ensure enrolling their kids in public primary schools as they have been reformed.
Akinsola disclosed that kindergarten and nursery classes have been established which gives privilege to kids from age three to attend public primary schools in Lagos.
She appreciated the efforts of her colleagues, the School-Based Management Committee (SBMC), Mr Sunday Adebisi and SUBEB Supervisor of schools in Oshodi-Isolo, Mrs Koffi Idara, for ensuring that vital information is disseminated to residents in Oshodi-Isolo LGA.
