“The vision of His Excellency (Babatunde Fashola) was the provision of quality education to the children of Lagos state.” The deputy governor of Lagos state, Sarah Sosan, made this statement last week while assessing the performance of the Ministry of Education over the past four years.

True, Mr Fashola promised a lot to parents and students in the state at the start of his administration in 2007. At that time, the people of Lagos needed a lot of promises. Public schools in Lagos were in dire need of infrastructure development. Furniture, classrooms, toilets, water supply, laboratories and many more were in dilapidated states in some schools and non-existent in others. The performance of students in internal and external examinations was at its lowest with Lagos State performing poorly in the West African Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (WASSCE) and the National Examinations Council (NECO) exams.

Classrooms were overpopulated, teachers were inadequate, and the morale of the average public school student was quite low.

It was obvious that there was urgent need for massive restructuring and provision of infrastructure in public schools.

Mrs Sosan, who has been at the helm of affairs in the education sector for the past four years presented the achievements of the ministry at a press briefing in Lagos last week.

While some of the achievements are quite laudable, the extent of the reach of the reformations her administration has put in place is still questionable.

Furniture and classrooms

Mrs Sosan noted that a total of 2,786 classrooms had been constructed from 2007 till date. Similarly, 20 blocks of classrooms leading to additional 216 classrooms were constructed in the past year.

“Classes are being renovated, laboratories are being provided, rehabilitation of schools has continued. We have continued to repair our furniture in the schools to ensure that no student sits on the floor,” she said.

In 2010, Mr Fashola declared an emergency in the furniture situation in public schools and directed that furniture be distributed to all schools with a hope that no child in public schools would be without furniture by the end of 2010.

However, complaints from parents at the last Parents’ Forum held for parents of students in public primary schools in Lagos reveals that the needs of the students is still far from being satisfied.

Olumuyiwa Adesanya, whose child attends Methodist Primary School Elepe, Ikorodu had complaints.

“There is congestion of students in the class,” he said. “There is only one school serving about 15 villages. There are no chairs, no teachers for the children. We have only six classrooms for over 1000 students.”

Over population

There were deliberate measures put in place to curb over-population in schools, Mrs Sosan noted. This had been a serious problem for students in Lagos as congestion of their classrooms adversely affects their learning and performance.

A minimum of 65 percent pass for entrance into the model colleges was enforced and some schools were split into School 1 and 2, junior and senior secondary.

“We still have a lot of pressing needs for schools establishment. In some schools right now, we have overpopulation in the classes and in most cases we can’t admit more students because we don’t have more classes,” she said.

The students and their parents feel the brunt of this problem even more. Akeem Oladeinde, the secretary of the Parents’ Forum at Olodi-Apapa Senior Secondary School, Tolu School Complex, complained recently that students are congested in their classrooms.

“The school has been neglected,” he said. “There are no good buildings, no toilet and there is congestion in the classrooms. The school has only one entrance and exit in case of any outbreak.”

Students’ performance

In March 2010, the National Association of Nigerian Students in higher institutions in Lagos State protested the poor performance of students sitting for the secondary certificate examinations.

The protest was the students’ reaction to the result of the 2009 November/December Senior School Certificate Examination (SSCE) results which were released by the National Examinations Council (NECO).

The registrar of NECO, Promise Okpala, said that 4,223 out of 234,682 candidates, representing 1.8 percent, passed with five credits and above, including English and Mathematics.

Mr Okpala added that 12,197 candidates, representing[b] 5.2 per cent,[/b] passed with five credits and above, irrespective of subjects.

Also the result of the June/July 2010 Secondary School Certificate examination conducted by NECO showed that 870,305 candidates who sat for the examinations that year failed to get a credit pass in English Language. That represented 79 percent of the 1,113,177 candidates who sat for the examination that year. One of the worst hit in the abysmal performance was Lagos State.

Performance in the WAEC examinations for Lagos students has not been encouraging and[b] has hit an all-time low in recent years.[/b]

With the hope of improving this, Mrs Sosan noted that 507 graduate teachers were employed to coach SS3 students for the ongoing WAEC examinations.

Also, the cut off mark for promotion into Senior Secondary classes was raised to 50 percent to ensure that only those who are competent to sit and pass external examinations are promoted. “A lot of efforts has been put in place to ensure performance is improved,” Mrs Sosan said.

Laboratories and computer training

Science and computer education was greatly neglected in public schools. However, obvious steps to correct the defect were made in the past four years by the current administration.

“We established the first of its kind Educational Resource Centre and this is located in Ojodu,” Mrs Sosan said. “It has a 24-person capacity ICT Laboratory and the centre is also open to public use. We have continued to promote the teaching and learning of science education in our schools by providing laboratories in our schools. During the WAEC examinations, we provide the chemicals they need. 110 schools were provided with computer laboratories.”

However, more still needs to be done[b] as lots of schools are still lacking such equipment[/b].

Princess Sowemimo, whose daughter attends Community Secondary School, Old Workyard, Mushin, said in March at the last parents forum for public secondary schools. “The school is bad, the building is bad, the roof is falling apart, there is no laboratory apparatus. I’m tired, just come and see for yourself what we are talking about,” she said.

Teacher training

An obvious shortage and training deficit of teachers was observed in public schools in recent years. However, Mrs Sosan noted that the Teachers’ Establishment and Pensions Office (TEPO) has been able to address the problem to a large extent.

“Through TEPO, we have been able to train and retrain our teachers and also have a good relationship with industrial unions. TEPO has trained 27,159 teachers. We also carried out the promotion exercise of 20,063 officers in our schools. We have continued to pursue the welfare of our teachers especially in rewarding handwork,” she said.

It is hoped by most parents that the measures put in place to improve the standard of education in the state over the past four years would yield good returns. However, for those who still have needs in certain areas, their plea to the government is for urgent intervention for the sake of the future of their wards.


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