According to Governor Akinwunmi Ambode, N60bn is required for revamping Lagos public schools
About N60 billion will be required to rehabilitate existing dilapidated public schools and build new ones in the riverine areas of Lagos State, according to Governor Akinwunmi Ambode.
Ambode said though his administration had spent about N10 billion in the last 22 months to upgrade facilities in schools and make them learning and teaching-friendly, there remained much to be done in the education sector.
The governor said from the study carried out in 2016 to ascertain the needs of schools in the state and improve on them, some N60 billion would be required to attend to them, adding that a provision had been made in the 2017 budget to address the challenge.
“The result showed that we need about N60 billion to put our schools together. But we have started the rehabilitation of the schools last year. We expended about N10 billion trying to put the worst set of schools back in place.
“This year, a major intervention is also going to take place from our budget to see that at least let the existing schools even compete favourably with the private sector schools. That is the whole idea. I went to a public school and I must give back. Then, some of our riverine areas don’t really have schools.
“If you go to Ilashe and other places, there are no schools there and you see people taking canoes to go to school. So, that intervention is what we are also doing this year to see that there is continuous capital expenditure in public schools,” Ambode said.
He added that over 2300 qualified teachers have also being employed and posted across the various primary and secondary schools in the State to improve the performance of students, which according to him is already yielding results.
On why the state is yet to begin the meal-a-day programme, Ambode said his administration was working towards a sustainable plan for the programme to cater for the eventual take off.
He said that since the programme was a combination of resources from the Federal Government in partnership with state governments, it was pertinent that the necessary funds to be provided to prevent hiccups after the take-off.
“Yes, it was in our manifesto but again in practical terms, we are still on it. The number of students in Lagos and the budgetary provision also do not really match for us to start. I don’t like a situation whereby we come out for two to three months and then stop.
“I will like to sustain it when we start and don’t forget also that the project is a combination of resources from the Federal in partnership with State Governments. So, obviously in terms of provisions and resources, we in Lagos think we should have a long drawn sustainable plan and that is why we have not started it. What I can assure the people is that we are working on it,” he said.
