By Adebayo Miracle
The government of Lagos state has set up a public awareness programme in form of a campaign to bring back drop-out students into the academic world to complete their academic pursuits for a chance of a secured future.
The special adviser to the Lagos state governor in person of barrister Tokunbo Wahab during the public awareness programme which was organized by his office situated in Amunwo Odofin Local council implores the crowd and resident presents in the programme and are victim of drop-out to return back to school. He emphasizes on the girl-child who may have drop-out of school as a result of early pregnancy, early marriage, poverty or other factors which may have been best known to them not to give up on their education and they should return back to school.
He went further to urge them not to give up easily on their educations as what makes other young girls like them also who might have been affected by same circumstances like pregnancy, poverty and other factors to make effective use of the alternative school system provided by the Lagos state government to re-enroll themselves and also learn a vocational work to make them independent of any body, means they can do much better than that if they give it a chance.
He informed the public on the plans being made on building five more alternative schools in the administrative divisions of the state to add to the already existing one in Agboju Educational District 5 in order to have the presence of such schools in all the divisions of the state according to the state governor’s vision. One of the vision of the state governor is “mass literacy for sustainable development” He explained that the administration of governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu is bent on increasing the level of literacy among the members of the public and produce young entrepreneurs who will contribute directly and indirectly to the state economy growth.
Stating that there is no age barrier in gaining more knowledge, Mr Tokunbo Wahab urge all market women, housewives and other women who think they are less privilege and missed education in their earlier part of life to take advantage of the government vision and return back for secondary education or register for any vocational work at any of the nine vocational training centers present in Lagos state. He also made it known that the state government will be assisting members of the public interested in starting their business with soft loans through the Lagos State Employment Trust Funds (LSETF).
The chairman of the board of alternative high school for girls Agboju Mrs Funmilola Olajide, represented the special adviser to the governor in the street to street awareness campaign. She claims that education will remain a strong factors and weapon to fight poverty and ignorance. And that the Lagos state vision involving education and technology development agenda can only be achieve when the members of the public themselves are enlightened.
The special adviser also stated that comprehensive educational approach is require for the growing rate of the state’s population. This will give importance to the development of both informal and formal education to achieve success in the government vision for the state which is mass literacy for sustainable development, and also ensure quick economic growth for the state.
some of the already enrolled students also testified to the important of the secondary education for drop-outs and other wiling women ready to learn. One of them named Mrs Jemilah Sulyman according to the guardian news stated that the school is helpful as she is now gradually speaking English language, while she is learning a vocation free of charge from the school’s vocational Centre.