Only 40% of private schools in Lagos are approved — Govt

JUST about 40 per cent of over 17, 000 private primary and secondary schools in Lagos State are approved by the state government.

The director-general, Office of Education Quality Assurance, Ministry of Education, Mrs Ronke Soyombo, gave this revelation in her keynote address at the 2019 annual leadership summit of the League of Muslim School Proprietors (LEASMP), Lagos State chapter, held in Ikeja, last week.

The one-day event and 14th in, the series, with a theme: “Building a School Excellence – Wither the School Owners? had many stakeholders, including the executive director of Oxbridge College, Dr Femi Ogunsanya; the general manager of Lagos State Building Control Agency, Mr Nurudeen Shodeinde; chairman, National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools (NAPPS), Lagos State chapter, and the LEAMSP’s national president, Mr AbduWahid Obalakun, among others as speakers.

Mrs Soyombo said it was important that schools get approval from government and supply all accurate data to enable government to have effective planning for the sector.

According to her, government means well and appreciates the contributions of private schools to the education development in the state, but then, it is required they all follow the set guidelines.

The director-general commended LEAMSP for sustaining their leadership and management training and retraining programmes for members, saying “that is a surest way to have positive impacts on learning outcome on their students.”

She also urged them not to hide (but expose) any case of abuse in their schools as government is ready to respond to such cases within 48 hours.

Also speaking at the event, the executive director of Oxbridge College, Dr Femi Ogunsanya, listed four key areas every school proprietor must take into consideration; and these, according to him, are that classes must be interactive; creativity and innovation must be encouraged; good teachers’ welfare, training and retraining and conducive environment must be provided, and parents or sponsors must be seen as partners in progress.

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Mrs Ogunsanya, who spoke on ‘Road map to Smart City Schools,’ said that was the way for schools to be relevant in the 21st century.

On his part, the chairman of LEAMSP, Lagos chapter, Mr Fatai Raheem, said the essence of the yearly summit by the association is for members to interact, network and then acquire new knowledge that could help them to perform better in their social service delivery.

He noted that for this year, the group chose the theme so as to teach members how to mend their areas of weaknesses for improved performance and particularly to ensure their schools outlive them.

He said it was not good that schools dies with their owners, as such would have huge negative effects on the education sector and the society at large.

He, however, pointed out that the previous summits had yielded tremendous results for Lagos State and Nigeria by extension.