Stakeholders say Lagos education budget too low for public schools

Lagos State Government has been implored to widen sources of funding for education and encourage corporate sector investment, as well as voluntary support. They said the state’ education budget is too low to appropriately respond to the needs of public schools in the state.

This was the submission of participants at a two-day stakeholders’ roundtable on Sustainable Financing for the Teaching Profession in Lagos State, organised by Human Development Initiatives (HDI) in collaboration with Actionaid, with the support of Norad.

The stakeholders also said education curriculum should be overhauled to make it responsive to contemporary learning needs and in doing so, relevant key stakeholders should be consulted.

Noting that the present condition of public education teachers’ service cannot attract and retain best teachers, they said Lagos State Government should incentivize the teaching profession to make it attractive.

“The Lagos State Government should provide all basic social welfare packages for teachers and education officers to attract professional teachers into the public education sector.”

The participants further said the state government should strengthen the Quality Assurance Department of the Ministry of Education to regularly and effectively supervise, monitor education service delivery and school interventions.