Education Stakeholders in Lagos State have tasked the Lagos State Government to widen its sources of funding for education and encourage Corporate Sector investment as well as voluntary support with the aim of creating sustainable financing for the teaching profession in Lagos State.
The Stakeholders also want the government to institutionalize the blueprints of successful past interventions within the Education Sector.
The stakeholders, comprising of National Union of Teachers, School Based Management Committee, Representatives of the Lagos State Ministries of Education and Finance, Joint National Association of Persons with Disabilities, Education focused NGOs and the media, made the demands during a roundtable discussion on Sustainable Financing for the Teaching Profession in Lagos State which was organized by the Human Development Initiatives (HDI) in collaboration with ActionAid Nigeria.
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It was noted that the teaching profession has been faced with a lot of challenges which has been affecting the education system in the state and it was recommended that, “the Ministry of Education working with other relevant institutions should improve training and retraining of teachers and develop efficient KPIs to monitor teachers’ training performance.
“The Ministry of Education in collaboration with the other agencies of government should strengthen succession strategy that will sustain the supply of professional teachers into the public school system,” and “the Lagos 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.”
Professor Stephen Oyebade, Dept. Of Educational Management, Faculty of Education at the University of Lagos, while delivering his paper on ‘Sustainable Ways of Funding Teacher Welfare in Times of Economic Depression in Nigeria’, revealed that “education remains the key to the development of the country” and urged everyone to unite to improve the education sector.
Prof. Oyebode stressed that the government can explore private sector and external support to expand funding opportunities for the education sector.
Dr. Adebukola Adebayo, Lagos State Chairman, JONAPWD, noted that, “the inclusive education policy in Lagos State needs to be reviewed, to meet with current realities.” He also added that “tertiary institutions in Lagos State need to be accredited for Special Education teaching with the purpose of driving human capital resources to the inclusive schools in the state.”
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Earlier, Mrs. Olufunso Owasanoye, Executive Director, HDI, noted that, “the quality of teachers determines the standard of education and it is important that we work towards achieving sustainable financing for the teaching profession,” adding that, “adequate funding of education is a catalyst to boost morale of teachers to improve performance.”
Kyauta Giwa of Action Aid Nigeria also noted that it is important that stakeholders observe all the recommendations that have been highlighted with the aim of improving the teaching profession in Lagos and Nigeria as a whole.