‘How Lagos is tackling burden of over 2m out-of-school children’

Executive Chairman, Lagos State Universal Basic Education Board (LASUBEB), Mr. Wahab Alawiye-King, has said the EkoExcel programme is helping to reduce the over two million out-of-school children in the state.

In a statement, on Wednesday, Alawiye-King noted that since the programme commenced, many out-of-school children have been taken off the streets, put in classrooms, and protected from violence, abuse, neglect, exploitation and exclusion.

He said: “The enrollment has yielded tremendous results since its commencement, with a good number of out-of-school children being captured and registered into EkoExcel schools. One, in particular, is the story of a boy called Segun Borno. He wouldn’t have believed, if he had been told before September 2021, that he would be enrolled in a primary school by that month end and would improve his literacy and numeracy skills three months later.

“The reason was that, until the morning of that September, while Borno’s age mates were in school, he was on the streets, helping to support his grandparents and siblings from proceeds of the candy he hawked. His grandparents were not pleased that he was engaged in petty trading. Ultimately, their desire was for him to be educated but they couldn’t afford it.

“So, the young boy became a negative statistic, by being among the 258 million children and youths who are out of school, globally, according to United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation’s 2018 statistics.”

Alawiye-King noted that at inception of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu’s administration, the governor had assured Lagosians that provision of quality education was a major priority and that he was determined to change the face of primary education by re-training and empowering teachers with technology-driven techniques to tutor pupils. He said the vision also included enrollment of out-of-school children.

On his part, Permanent Board Member of LASUBEB and oversight Chair of EkoExcel, Adebayo Adefuye, said the decision to turn public schools into friendly places of learning has also boosted enrolment.

“We are making public schools a fun, friendly environment for learning, and I am certain we will see more improvement in our enrolment figures.

“EkoExcel schools are monitored real-time by a digital and data-driven electronic dashboard that displays the data of all 1009 primary schools under the programme, 13,673 teachers, 10,085 classrooms and the almost 500,000 pupils across all the local councils in the state. This dashboard is accessible on-the-go to all relevant primary education stakeholders across Lagos State.”