Dropouts: Lagos, Stakeholders Strategise on Keeping Students in Schools

In a strengthened effort to tackle the challenge of school dropouts in Lagos, the government recently gathered stakeholders across the education sector to review its action steps.
One of the actions being reviewed was the state’s Comprehensive Schools Programme, launched in February to teach skills acquisition in learning and empower students with various entrepreneurial courses.
According to the Commissioner for Education, Mrs. Folasade Adefisayo, the programme was a collaboration between the Lagos government and organised private sector and non-governmental agencies. It aims to keep prospective dropouts in and improve their prospects, bringing together top-quality vocational training with regular academic curricula.​
While discussing with stakeholders, including administrators, principals, and teachers of public secondary schools, how the programme has fared so far, Adefisayo lamented the alarming figure of out-of-school children in the state.
She acknowledged stakeholders’ inputs. However, she maintained that much is still to be done to achieve the programme’s overall aim.​ ​
In enhancing the programme, too, the Commissioner announced the involvement of the Office of Education Quality Assurance (OEQA) to help in the maintenance and improvement of programme standards.
Justifying the programme, Adefisayo recalled her encounter with a yam seller who happened to be one of her best Chemistry students years back when she was a school administrator in Osun.
She said such a programme would have guided the yam seller to a career path, adding that the girl’s situation was a fallout of students not being taught what they wanted to do.
“The Comprehensive Schools Programme would help them become self-reliant by teaching skills they are good at and passionate about,” she stressed.
Permanent Secretary, Lagos State Ministry of Education, Mr Abayomi Abolaji, revealed further that plans are in top gear to expand the programme to 50 schools by September 2022, noting that the selection of schools was a function of available infrastructure.​
The pilot phase of the programme was launched in 12 secondary schools across the six education districts in Lagos.
He said, “In terms of the classrooms, we will renovate them to such a state as to become conducive for proper learning by replacing furniture, installing smart TVs and other gadgets for the VTech sessions.”
Adefisayo added, ” The programme would ultimately cover every public secondary school in the state because all our schools are affected by the dropout problem. We want to retain those who would learn different vocations within the structured environment of the schools. We are saying to them, ‘Pay attention, do well, make us proud’ as we continue tracking them and seeing them get to wherever they can in life.”
At the meeting too, stakeholders recommended that the programme be extended to private secondary schools. They also made a case for physically challenged students regarding the provision of facilities and proposed registration of patients for students’ exclusive products.
Over 500 students are currently enrolled in the Lagos State Comprehensive Schools Programme.
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