The Lagos State Universal Basic Education Board’s (LASUBEB) EKOEXCEL will relentlessly empower children and youths with the requisite skills for a self-reliant future.
The Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, said this at the 2023 Children’s Day celebration, ‘ More Money for Primary Education,’ held at Police College Ground, Ikeja, Lagos.
The 2023 edition of the Children’s Day celebration featured March-Past, symbolic registration of Nursery and Primary One Pupils to the state public schools and cutting of the celebration cake.
Speaking through his deputy, Dr Obafemi Hamzat, at the event, Governor Sanwo-Olu said Lagos would continue collaborating with the private sector to boost children and youth in the state.
He added that the Government will also provide the right environment to develop the skills to prepare pupils for a brighter future.
The Governor described the celebration theme as a call on leaders to provide more money for primary education.
He explained that since 2019, the state government has delivered a series of initiatives, including EKOEXCEL for children’s benefit, to underscore its commitment to child rights protection and welfare.
Governor Sanwo-Olu said that his administration would continue to create awareness of important issues to make the children happy.
He added: “Government recognises early childhood education’s role in ensuring a better future for children. As part of the Government’s efforts to improve teaching and learning in Primary and Secondary Schools across the State, over 1,449 projects have been commissioned, covering 1,036 schools across all 20 Local Government Areas and 37 Local Communities Development Areas
“These include construction, renovation, and rehabilitation of dilapidated Public Schools and supply of composite furniture units to schools, among other infrastructure projects.
“Also, through the “Project Zero Program”, the rate of out-of-school children has reduced by reabsorbing with full kits, a total of 11, 957 pupils back to school to demonstrate our administration’s zero tolerance for “Out of School Children”.
Since its inauguration in 2019, EKOEXCEL has recorded notable achievements, including moving over 13,000 headteachers and teachers from analogue to digital teaching, using tablets and updated curricula.
Over 14,000 primary school teachers from 1,011 public primary schools have been captured under the scheme. It has also enhanced the teacher-pupil interaction experience through technology (eLearning) in Lagos State primary schools.
Last April, the Lagos State government, through EKOEXCEL launched a dedicated real-time monitoring control centre called the Situation Room that visualizes the flow of data – direct from the classroom to dashboards displaying it in real time from all 1013 primary schools under the program.
The state-of-the-art facility equipped with cutting-edge technology, is arguably the first in Nigeria for government owned schools.
The Lagos state government recently celebrated the 2023 edition of World Book day through EKOEXCEL, with the incredible milestone of distributing over 300 million learning materials to all 1013 Lagos State public primary schools under the EKOEXCEL programme with close to a million children benefiting.
There is high optimism that primary 6 pupils under the EKOEXCEL programme will perform excellently at the 2023 National Common Entrance Exams (NCEE) coming up in June, aiming to emulate last years’ performances by the top three Lagos State public primary school pupils who scored 198, 197 and 196 respectively over 210.
Quality and equitable basic education is a major priority of Lagos State, under the THEMES agenda, evidenced by the investment in EKOEXCEL, a pivotal project designed to elevate the education trajectory of Lagos State by bringing equal opportunity to all children in the state, making education affordable for everyone. EKOEXCEL is a fulfillment of Governor Sanwo-Olu’s commitment to education in his THEMES agenda.
This article appeared originally on Independent, June 1, 2023
