Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, on Wednesday, 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.
Sanwo-Olu further disclosed 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).
The Governor emphasised that the projected outcomes of his administration’s education policy would lead to increased productivity and human resources, which, in turn, would keep the Lagos economy resilient.
Sanwo-Olu made the disclosure when giving his remark at the Concordia Summit, a high power global side forum at the ongoing 74th Session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York, United States.
The Lagos Governor joined three other panelists in the event that focused on the theme: Building Resilient Economies on the Basis of Education, Technology and Access.
Sanwo-Olu said Lagos would be witnessing fundamental transformation in the deployment of technology to deliver quality services in different sectors of the state’s economy.
The Governor said 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.
He said: “Lagos has a 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 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.” Sanwo-Olu said.
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 said the tools would allow the government to determine the aptitude of individual pupils and monitor their academic progress. He added that private schools would be coopted into the new system to ensure uniformity in learning culture.
“We are digitising the learning culture in our schools for them to be run in line with our education 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,” the Governor said.
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 panelists at the forum are Chief Executive Officer of the World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE), Stavros Yiannouka; Columbian Minister for Information and Communication Technology, Sylvia Cristina Constaín Rengifo; Mayor of Athens in Greece, Kostas Bakoyannis. The session was moderated by Asia Correspondent for CBS News, Ramy Inocencio.
