26th July, 2013
Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babatunde Fashola (SAN), Thursday presided over the third annual Governor’s Education Award, with a renewed commitment to continue to promote academic excellence in the State’s public schools.
Commenced in the 2010/2011 academic session, the annual Governor’s Education Award is a Lagos Eko Project initiative, endorsed and instituted by Governor Fashola with the objective “to sustain the gains made in learning outcomes by providing additional performance-based incentive to qualifying schools.”
Addressing a capacity gathering of students, teachers and education managers as well as prominent educationists, entrepreneurs, representatives of education development partners, organisations and agencies at the Havens Event Centre, GRA, Ikeja venue of the occasion, Governor Fashola promised that he and his team would continually explore new ways to better academic performance in all the public schools in the state during their tenure.
The Governor told the cheering hundreds of students at the venue that “there is a burden on us, to prepare you better than we were prepared, to enable you do better than we are doing. As long as I remain your Governor, my team and I will continue to carry that burden and with a smile on our faces.”
Governor Fashola, who stressed the importance of education as a veritable tool to conquer poverty and ignorance, said there was need for all stakeholders in the welfare and development of children to take measures that were capable of demonstrating to the children and up-coming generation the importance of education.
According to him, “as stakeholders, guardians, principals, permanent secretaries, commissioners, elders in every sense, it is incumbent on all of us to show our children that their education is important to us. I have had cause to say before that we are the mirror through whom our children see light. If they see that we pay important attention to education, it is easy to communicate and demonstrate to them that it is important.”
He described the Governor’s Education Award as part of the many ways his administration is encouraging academic excellence in the public schools adding that since the initiative which, according to him, came from an idea he borrowed from a nephew in the United States of America, was started, the education results in public schools by performances have improved.
“In 2008, only 10.4 percent of our students in our public schools achieved five credits in the West African School Certificate Examinations. In 2012, the number has tripled to 38.5 percent”, the Governor said adding, however, “But that is not our destination and we are hoping that the results will continue to get better year after year as they have been in the preceding years”.
The Governor continued, “So from that very small idea, we are here for the third consecutive year with results to show. It does not matter to me who owns an idea, what matters always is what I can do with it. Can I make it better, can I adapt it to sooth my situation? I think whatever I saw there, we have domesticated a Governor’s Award of immense proportion and really inspiring results. A small idea to reward performance has helped us to improve results in our public secondary schools”.
Other things the Government is doing to improve academic performance in public schools in the State, Governor Fashola said, include the training of teachers which continues both locally and overseas, seeking partnership with organizations like the World Bank to run education projects aimed at improving educational standards in public schools and continuous addition and renovation of infrastructure to meet the needs of the sector.
The Governor said apart from adding 19 new schools to the existing 642 across the State, Government has just recruited teachers who, he said, are currently undergoing documentation hinting that plans are underway to convert the Adeniran Ogunsanya College of Education and the Michael Otedola College of Primary Education into degree awarding institutions affiliated to the Lagos State University.
“We are looking at ways to improve the quality of training in our training institutions, Adeniran Ogunsanya College of Education and Michael Otedola College of Primary Education; about how to specialize to make the two institutions degree awarding institutions so that they will become schools of the Lagos State University awarding graduate degrees with specialties in primary education and with specialties in secondary education”, he said.
On the day’s event as part of ways to promote academic excellence, Governor Fashola said this year’s results and awards would recognize 12 outstanding teachers who would get sponsorship for overseas training and 12 outstanding principals adding that it would come with the prize of N256 million representing N2 million for each school “to do with as they please” while also 50 schools would win the rights to start their own Power Kids Club.
Explaining that the Power Kids Club has become quite popular as a reward for academic excellence in the Governor’s Award because of all that the students stand to enjoy, the Governor noted with joy that at the last Power Kids Summit some children from the public schools “were generating electricity to power calculators and torch lights using ordinary home and domestic appliances like potatoes and yam to generate power”, adding, “That is the kind of training that is also going on so the scientists of tomorrow are also emerging from this award”.
He declared, “What we have seen from some of the studies that we have conducted is that many more people, many more citizens are entrusting their children to our public school system and that is a vote of confidence for what all of us have done here in the last few years”.
The Governor thanked individual and corporate stakeholders in and sponsors of the State’s education programmes, including the co-ordinator of Eko Education Project, Ms Ronke Azeez, the Ministry of Education including the Commissioner for Education, the Permanent Secretary and the Special Adviser on Education, Principals, teachers and education managers former Attorney-General and Justice Minister of the Federation, Prince Bola Ajibola, Business mogul, Chief Molade Okoya-Thomas, the World Bank, Traditional Rulers and Political leaders for their support to the government to promote academic excellence in the State’s public school.
Other corporate organisations that earned the Governor’s gratitude were a German company which will be providing Industrial automation and “mechatronics” at the Agidingbi Technical College, an Indian company who will be helping to develop power facilities in the State “and in that way help to train our children”, and Ecobank which, according to him, “has been a relentless supporter in terms of gifts and awards for the children”.
Also included in the Governor’s expression of gratitude were artistes and stage performers such as Tade Ogidan, Tina Mba, Femi Brainan, Adebayo Salami (Oga Bello), Funso Adeolu, Cynthia Balogun, Yinka Akanbi, Moji Olaiya, Afeez Oyetoro etc whom he described as “Icons of our society who have lent their very famous brands, their faces and their individual skills to the development of public education in Lagos”.
Earlier in his welcome address, one of the students, Master Innocent Momodu, described the Governor’s Education Award as “a celebration of academic achievements irrespective of gender, tribe, religion or social class” adding that the results recorded in academic performance in the State’s public schools as a result of the various initiatives of Government such as Eko Project, was a clear demonstration that with adequate investment, public schools could perform better in both internal and external examinations.
Asserting that students in the state’s public schools were making giant strides in improving learning standards, Master Momodu declared, “Today’s ceremony is a demonstration of our Governor’s commitment to improving the public education system in the State”.
Some of the highlights of the event included a stage drama presentation by students titled “Go to School”, a documentary titled “In Our Time”, a Presentation by the coordinator of Eko Project, Ms Ronke Azeez, a theme song titled “Eko Dara Pupo”, and presentation of Awards to 65 Junior Secondary Schools and 63 Senior Secondary Schools.