The Speaker of the House of Representatives Rep. Femi Gbajabiamila, on Friday distributed educational materials to some schools in Surulere 1 Federal Constituency of Lagos State.
The programme, tagged ‘Back to School Jump-Start,’ was to address the widening educational disadvantage heightened by the Covid -19 pandemic, digitise the teaching and learning process, and inculcate a culture of basic hygiene in schools across the nation.
Speaking at the occasion organised in collaboration with the National Lottery Trust Fund (NLTF), Gbajabiamila said while the health implications of the pandemic were all too obvious, its consequences for education were subtle but devastating, hence the need for such interventions.
Represented by Rep. Ademorin Kuye, the Speaker said: “Statistics are scarce as to how many children have dropped out of school due to the pandemic, especially in countries with developing economies.
“Even where learning seems to have continued uninterrupted, it is hard to evaluate the educational disadvantages stemming from inadequate infrastructure for virtual teaching. For students in Nigerian public schools, the lockdown in 2020 was a huge academic setback.
“Thus, the Jump-Start Project is designed to mitigate the disadvantage caused by the lack of digital infrastructure in public schools, as well as ensure that there are no breaks in teaching and learning in the event of future pandemics. Education is the best possible investment in people.
“It is the silver bullet that lifts people out of poverty, encourages a broader perspective that expands their world view and allows them to engage critically with the questions that determine the course of civilisation, innovation, and human progress.
“As a government, we are committed to building back a better and stronger educational system, which will be resistant to the eventualities of the new normal and personally, I am committed to improving the lives and livelihoods of my constituents through education.
“A key to achieving this is the normalisation of digital learning and personal sanitation in public schools. Nigeria, and indeed Africa, has been short-changed by the roll-over effect of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, if the Jump-Start objectives are achieved, we would have taken advantage of the COVID-19 crisis to match up with global educational facilitation.”
The Minister of Special Duties, Sen. George Akume, who was represented at the event, commended the Speaker for initiating the programme and his passion for education. He said the programme “is the first of its kind and is groundbreaking in reducing the gap between the private and public schools such that no school is left behind now that technology has become so vital and central to learning and education.”
The minister said the speaker was known as a great patriot deeply committed to issues affecting the wellbeing and development of the nation and so the success of the initiative did not come as a surprise to him.
In a remark, the Executive Secretary of the lottery fund, Dr Bello Maigari, who represented the Minister of Special Duties at the event, lauded the speaker’s tireless efforts in finding solutions to cushion the adverse effects of Covid-19 on the country’s education sector.
He said the programme was aimed at improving the capacity of schools in the area of good hygiene practice through the provision of basic and standard teaching and learning aid such as laptops, smart tablet fitted e-books for promoting standards in line with global best practices.
He congratulated the 46 schools that benefitted from the programme and reaffirmed the agency’s commitment to supporting its continuation across the six geopolitical zones, noting that it got involved in the Surulere programme in fulfilment of its mandate as an intervention agency.
Also speaking, Adaku Apugo, who is the Special Assistant to the Speaker on Intergovernmental Affairs, under whom the intervention was coordinated, said the ‘Schools Jump-Start’ was designed to address the vulnerabilities of the public education system laid bare by the Covid -19 pandemic.
She noted that the project implementation identified four strategic priority areas, namely: classroom infrastructure; sanitary facilities; stationeries, and the deployment of a national Learning Management Systems (LMS) for e-learning.
“These priority areas constitute a comprehensive hierarchy of the challenges faced by the public education system and the solutions that prepare us for the future”, she added.
The Founder of the Social Impact, Healthcare and Education Foundation, Sola Afolayan, who is an implementing partner, encouraged the beneficiaries to show gratitude for the Jumpstart project by putting the equipment and facilities that they received to appropriate use. She said the sponsors would be encouraged to do more when they discover that the objective of virtual learning was achieved.
Health equipment was also donated to the Gbaja Child and Maternity Centre at the Randle General Hospital, Surulere. Some of the donated items included mechanical patient weighing scales, sphygmomanometers, stethoscopes, oxygen concentrators, obstetric sets, autoclave machines, sonicard machines, delivery couches, binocular microscopes, hematocrit centrifuge machines, bucket centrifuges and genotype machines.
As for the e-learning materials donated to the 46 schools, they included laptops, Android tablets and phones, stationeries such as exercise books and writing materials as well as some sanitary materials.