Education stakeholders differ on Sanwo-Olu's 100 days without cabinet

Yomi Otubela, President, National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools (NAPPS) has described as “unusually long” the period being taken by Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu to have a cabinet, 100 days into his second term.

He told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos on Friday that the failure to put a cabinet in place, made it difficult to have a picture of his administration’s policy direction in the education sector in the first 100 days of his second term.

“The first 100 days of the governor second term may not be enough to assess the performance of a critical sector like the education sector in the state.

“It is more so that it is taking unusually long to constitute the executive arm of the state government as some commissioners only got confirmed recently by the Lagos State House of Assembly.

“So, we can say that not much has been achieved in the area of policy direction in the education sector in the 100 days.

“However, if we want to assess the sector using the past years before the second term, we can say that the education sector in the state has performed well,” he said.

Otubela said that Lagos State performed above other states in terms of policy guidelines and implementation, quality standards and monitoring of schools to ensure compliance.

“Particularly, we noted the performance of EKOEXCEL (Excellence in Child Education and Learning) which is an education reform programme of the Lagos State.

“EKOEXCEL is poised to develop more highly skilled teachers through training, supporting, and motivating existing government teachers to succeed in their classrooms.

“Despite the achievements in the past years, we still believe that there is still room for improvement as we expect much-improved performance from the sector this second term,” Otubela said.

Sunday Fowowe, National President, Association of Nursery and Primary Education Instructors in Nigeria (ANPEIN), however, said that within 100 days, even without any commissioner, the administration had made some impacts.

He said that Lagos State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) had recruited some teachers to fill in the gap in primary schools.

Fowowe said that, though not publicly announced, the step was commendable.

He said it was also noticeable that the administration was providing more security facilities to boost response time in schools and everywhere in Lagos.

“I call for establishment of early childhood education commission which is imperative to allow quality and 100 per cent concentration in every child’s foundation.

“When the foundation is well structured and receives attention,then all other levels will be good for it,” Fowowe said of his expectations.

Also, Akintoye Hassan, Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT), Lagos Chapter, said that the foundation the governor had laid in his first term in terms of policies that affect education had remained consistent.

He said that in the second term, he was still committed to continuing to nurture those policies, though there had yet to be a Commissioner for Education that would take charge of administration.

“The Permanent Secretary in charge is also doing his best to keep the education flag flying in the state.

“They are not owing teachers salary in Lagos State; within this 100 days, over 4,000 teachers at different grade levels in secondary schools have been promoted, which was implemented immediately in July.

“We have also resumed for the new term among other states in the country,” Hassan said.

He appealed to the state governor to make pronouncement and approve retirement age of teachers from 60 to 65 for teachers in the state.

“This our plea is not mainly for us but for those coming in as teachers now and in future,” Hassan said.