Stakeholders urge Lagos to invest in education

Concerned stakeholders in the basic education sub-sector in Lagos State have urged the state government to invest more in basic education, by way of intervention to improve the overall educational outcomes in the state.

The group, comprising parents and guardians, retired civil servants, members of School Based Management Committees, Parents’ Forum, Community Development Associations (CDAs) and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), however, commended the State Universal Basic Education Board (LSUBEB) on the implementation of the year 2015 Universal Basic Education (UBE) projects across the state, as a timely intervention towards the development of basic education in Lagos.

With support from Human Development Initiatives (HDI) and USAID Strengthening Advocacy and Civic Engagement (SACE) project, the group embarked on a monitoring tour of UBE projects in the state, following the release of the year 2015 Lagos SUBEB Action Plan by UBE and subsequent approval from Lagos SUBEB to monitor UBE projects in the state.

Toyin Pender, a member of the independent monitoring group, while speaking at a press conference, said the aim of the monitoring exercise was to track the utilisation of UBE grants in the state.

She said: “We attest to the fact that we visited all projects sites captured in the action plan for real-time monitoring between November, 2017 and March 2018, and submitted details of findings from our monitoring activities to HDI.

“From the monitoring exercise, we can state unequivocally that all renovation projects have been completed 100 percent, 41 per cent of construction projects have been completed, while the remaining 59 per cent were on-going.

As at March 28, 2018, only about half that is 50 per cent of all fencing projects have been completed.”