Sanwo-Olu: Lagos to Deploy Technology to Boost Quality Education
Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has
said the state is pushing forward by leveraging on technology and internet
connectivity to deliver quality education in the state.
The governor stated this in his remark at the
Concordia Summit, a high-powered global side forum at the ongoing 74th Session
of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York, United States.
Sanwo-Olu, who gave a snippet of his
administration’s policy direction on how the state is building a resilient
economy on the basis of education, technology and access, stressed that Lagos
is pushing forward by leveraging technology and internet connectivity to
deliver quality education to pupils in public schools in line with Goals 4, 9,
and 10 of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
He emphasised that the projected outcomes of his
administration education policy would lead to an increase in productivity and
human resources, which in turn would keep the Lagos economy resilient.
Sanwo-Olu said Lagos would witness fundamental
transformation in the deployment of technology to deliver quality services in different
sectors of the state economy.
The governor added that the state had finalised
partnership agreement with an international tech-based education consultant to
begin the process of digitising school curriculum, with the objective to
promote accountability in the delivery of quality education.
According to him, “Lagos has huge statistics in
school distribution, which is greater than the total number of schools in some
smaller African countries. Despite this huge number in supply, there is a
little challenge in delivering quality instruction.
"In the last four months of our
administration, we have been designing a process that will be leveraging
technology as key enabler to upscale quality and promote openness in the delivery
of education curriculum.
“We are on the verge of digitising the school
curriculum. This effort is being done in partnership with an international
tech-based education consultant, which has elements of success in deploying
tech tools to deliver quality and affordable education. We are also embarking
on extensive teachers’ training to ensure that the projected outcomes of this
innovation are achieved. All of these are set in motion to boost human
recourses, which would result in increased productivity and the resilience of
the Lagos economy.”
Public schools, the governor pointed out, would
also have access to the internet infrastructure to aid teaching and learning
through tech devices that would be supplied later to the schools.
Sanwo-Olu declared that the tools would allow the
government to determine the aptitude of individual pupils and monitor their
academic progress, adding that private schools would be co-opted into the new
system to ensure uniformity in learning culture.
He said: “We are digitising the learning culture in
our schools for them to be run in line with our educational objectives. We want
all schools to develop the same learning content, which would bridge the gap of
quality and create the same output at the end of the term. It will also allow
us to check private schools to ensure that they are teaching from the
curriculum we have agreed on.”
Sanwo-Olu also said the ongoing deployment of
metropolitan fibre optics by his administration in collaboration with a leading
telecommunication firm would stabilise internet connectivity required by tech
start-ups as well as Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to boost e-commerce
and increase access to healthcare across state.
Other panellists at the forum were Chief Executive
Officer of the World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE), Stavros Yiannouka;
Columbian Minister for Information and Communication Technology, Sylvia
Cristina ConstaÃn Rengifo; Mayor of Athens in Greece, Kostas Bakoyannis. The
session was moderated by Asia Correspondent for CBS News, Ramy Inocencio.
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