THE Executive Chairman, Lagos State Universal Basic Education Board, LASUBEB, Wahab Alawiye-King has said on Wednesday, January 19th, 2022 that the EkoExcel programme of the state government has rescued a lot of children from engaging in various crimes outside school in Lagos.
According to the LASUBEB boss, “It cannot be overemphasized that over Nine Millon out-of-school children need protection from the daily violence, abuse, neglect, exploitation and exclusion they face.
“Lagos State has over 2 million out-of-school children. This is a problem that the government wanted to tackle with the introduction of the programme.
“The enrollment drive exercise has yielded tremendous results since its commencement, with a good number of out-of-school children being captured and registered into EkoExcel schools as a result of the exercise.
While addressing the Press, Alawiye mentioned the case of a particular beneficiary of the program, Segun Borno.
“Segun Borno wouldn’t have believed if he had been told before September 2021 that he would be enrolled in a primary school by that month-end and improved his literacy and numeracy skills three months later.
“The reason was that until the morning of that September, while Segun's age mates were in school, Segun was on the streets, helping to support his grandparents and siblings from the proceeds of candy he hawked.
“His grandparents were not pleased that he was engaged in petty trading, ultimately, their desire was for him to be educated, but they couldn’t afford it. So, the young boy became a negative statistic, by being amongst the 258 million children and youths who are out of school globally according to UNESCO’s 2018 statistics”, Alawiye-King explained.
Recall that Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, at the inception of his administration, assured Lagosians that the provision of qualitative education was a major priority and he was determined to change the face of primary education by re-training and empowering teachers with technology driving techniques to tutor students as well as the enrollment of out-of-school children into school with a robust pupil enrollment drive exercise. EKOEXCEL is an initiative pushing Governor Sanwo-Olu's Leave No Child Behind policy.
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