By Lanre Adesanya
The Lagos lawmaker representing Ojo II constituency, Hon. Olanrewaju Ogunyemi, has stated that the education sector needs an overhaul.
Ogunyemi, who chairs the Education Committee of the State’s House of Assembly, made the disclosure in an interview with National Daily on Thursday.
He said Lagos needed more schools to depopulate the crowded classrooms.
“We need to bridge the quality gap to change our education in the riverine, rural and metropolitan areas. All of these are challenges that must be frontally addressed, so as to take education to the next level,” he said.
According to the legislator, the teachers also need to be encouraged to stay there and be ready to work in the rural areas. “We need to provide them with the necessary wherewithal, for them to want to stay there.”
Among the incentives he mentioned include rural allowance as an encouragement for teachers, though he noted the issue had repeatedly been tied to paucity of funds, non availability of adequate resources.
“But I think that we have education endowment fund law in this state. We need to look at that law again. Why has it not being very efficient and effective?”
He added that he is of the view that the government can drive the process of Corporate Social Responsibility.
“I even propose to put together a programme on that, the big one which is going to be the umbrella of all of these is that we should look at the possibility of having an ‘Education Summit’ in Lagos state,” he said.