Advancing Sanwo-olu’s vision on education

Athorough appraisal of the virile vision that the Governor Sanwo-olu has conceptualized in the critical area of education gives cause for hope, that a political leader is truly concerned about making the paradigm shift; to better the lot of the citizens of Lagos, especially the youth. It is important to note too, that with Lagos as the acclaimed Centre of Excellence, and a microcosm of Nigeria, blessed with abundant human and natural resources, it should be the leading light to other states, beaming the bright beacon against the growing incubus of ignorance, apathy, poverty and the challenge of unemployment.

Education, as the avatar, Nelson Mandela rightly submitted is “the most powerful weapon which one can use to change the world.” And he added that it is not only to acquire skills for economic development but for nation building and reconciliation. Nigeria needs to key into it now having been ranked as the country with the largest number of 13.2 million school-aged children that are out of school, as well as the poverty capital of the world.

As part of his Greater Lagos moving mantra there will be increase in budgetary allocation to education from a paltry 12.07percent to 18percent within the tenure of his administration. Notwithstanding the UNESCO recommendation of 26percent budgetary allocation to the education, which only the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo for the then Western Region, as implemented during the First Republic this is heart-warming development. That is, considering that more funds would be channeled towards the promised scaling up of infrastructure development of public schools across the state. The salutary aim is to rehabilitate and renovate dilapidated schools and provide adequate furniture and tools to every child in the public schools.

This increase in funding would no doubt include the state paying its counterpart fund to the Universal Basic Education (UBE) Scheme, an important issue that several other states have refused to meet their obligations. Also, significant is the crying need to ensure that the long-neglected

school libraries are resuscitated and well equipped with books, education journals, computers and e-library format that should begin at least at the secondary school level.

That brings us to the governor’s promise to leverage technology platforms to teach, assess, test and reinforce learning. The brilliant focus is by establishing 300 fully equipped and functional laboratories in secondary schools to complement the existing 12.In a similar vein, the new administration has pledged to facilitate the creation of ICT hubs across all the LGAS/ LCDAS within the first two years.

Commendable as the vision for Lagos state education is there are areas to be retooled to make it all-encompassing. One is to get a credible data base of school aged children that are currently roaming the streets, selling all manner of consumables when they are supposed to be in school. How to get them back into the classroom would entail a lot of public enlightenment and involvement of the parents.

The other issue, which the governor has touched on is that of training and retraining school teachers so that they would align with his vision for a technologically-driven economic development of the state. There is always the inadequate teacher- topupils/students ratio across the country. It will therefore, do the state, nay the country a world of good if more human capacity development as well as employment is created in this area.

The piece of good news is that the governor himself has been well grounded in this sector of staff training. He did this while he was the Commissioner, Establishment, Training and Pension. That he groomed several of them means that several meaningful seminars and workshops.

To succeed in this onerous task the Lagos state government should go into pragmatic partnerships with governments, organisations, including the Non-governmental ones that could drive the process. For instance, back in the early ‘80s the United States was worried about the fact that Asian innovators, technologists and technicians were coming up with smarter and more fuel-efficient cars compared t the American Ford automobile. It sent its educationists to Japan, China and other Asian countries to understudy their education curriculum and assess what they could do better. Governor SanwoOlu and his able team could borrow a fresh leaf from this laudable initiative.

The government could as a matter of policy begin to identify the best of its students in public schools and sponsor competitions in innovations and inventions with the aim to fund the products of their creative ingenuity. How to adopt these for the benefits of the people of Lagos is important. For instance, back in November 2012 some girls from a school in Iyana-ipaja, Lagos came up with a generator that uses urine instead of fossil fuel to power it. This attracted global attention but sad to note that not much has come out of that, because the interest was not sustained.

So, apart from granting scholarships to students, the Sanwo-olu administration should act as the engine room to engage students in coming up with scientific and technological solutions to accumulation of waste, seasonal flooding, frequent building collapse, processing and preservation of sea foods and how to utilize the power of sea/ocean tides to generate power. Good enough, it is host to the Federal Institute of Industrial Research, Oshodi (FIIRO), University of Lagos, Lagos State University and the Yaba-based IT hub that attracted the attention and visit of Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg. This is how countries such as India, Malaysia, Indonesia galvanised their people to turn their countries to become the Asian Tigers.

There is no doubt that with these firmly in place making Lagos a technologically-powered 21st Century economy will become a reality beyond the realm of fanciful dreams. This would “create a conducive business environment to attract foreign direct investments, establishment of industries and empowering the workforce and local talent to drive job and wealth creation”.

And as the Deputy Governor, Dr. Kadiri Hamzat succinctly puts it, “investment in technology and talent are vital to ensuring economic growth and wealth creation for residents and businesses throughout the state”.

All said, products of sustainable development in education will eventually be the catalysts to drive the state’s socio- economic landscape. These include accessible and affordable healthcare delivery, effective and modern traffic management and transportation, as well as sports, entertainment and the vast tourism potentials waiting to be tapped from one of the world’s fastest evolving smart cities-lagos.