Lagos Solicits More Private Sector Support To Bridge Gaps in the Education Sector

The Lagos State government has reiterated its commitment to give every student in the State, a solid foundation for personal and professional success.

Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu restated this at Victoria Island during this year’s EQUAL summit, one of the strategic initiatives of the administration to facilitate robust engagements with the private sector with a view to addressing gaps in the state’s education sector.

The EQUAL summit which represents: Equity, Quality, Ubiquity and Access in Learning, also served as a veritable platform to showcase the strides of the Lagos state government through the Ministry of Education in improving the education system and opening up opportunities for public private partnership interventions and mutually beneficial investments across the education value chain.

While acknowledging government’s responsibility to ensure that emerging generations of young people are exposed to the same high-quality opportunities as their counterparts globally, Governor Sanwo-Olu recognized and appreciated the tremendous contributions and donations of various private partners who supported the State Government’s Education Transformation Plan, most especially during the Covid 19 pandemic and lockdown of schools.

Represented by the Deputy Governor, Dr Obafemi Hamzat, the Governor noted that the outcome from the resources and efforts invested in the past three years have been modest and very encouraging given the improved performances of students from the State in national examinations, and international competitions and called for more support in raising the bar in the education sector and building the workforce for tomorrow.

“Let me use this medium to invite the private sector to collaborate with us in the areas of Investment in our newly established comprehensive schools, embrace the concept of adopting schools and equipping and upgrading their classroom accommodation as well as donating equipment and tools for technology; funding teacher training centres, donating to Lagos State Teacher Welfare Fund, sponsoring work experience schemes for students and teachers, sponsoring local and international exchange programmes, investing in special needs education, providing consultancy services for monitoring and evaluation, capacity development, data gathering and analysis.
We must therefore be rest assured that whatever support we are able to give would go a long way in raising the performance far and standards much higher” he said

Informing Stakeholders of future plans and needs in the Sector, the Commissioner for Education, Mrs Folasade Adefisayo said that over twenty-three billion naira had been expended in the construction and upgrade of school infrastructure in the past three years and called for additional support to meet the outlined goals.

“We need a lot of partners to collaborate with us to build the kind of educational sector that we know we can build, we are capable, we are competent, but we need a lot more than we have” the Commissioner noted

In an address of welcome, the Permanent Secretary, Office of Sustainable Development Goals and Investment, Mrs Abosede George explained that the summit was in line with the roadmap towards achieving the SDGs 4 which aims to ‘ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all’

She expressed optimitism that the summit would offer the state the opportunity to maximize the potential and value created by collaboration towards the delivery of equitable education regardless of social and economic backgrounds.