The Committee of Wives of Lagos State Officials (COWLSO), on Monday donated 5,000 transistor radios to enhance access to educational contents.
Lagos State Governor, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu, unveiled the transistor radios at an event held at Lagos House, Marina.
Sanwo-Olu also unveiled 5,000 face masks and cash donation by COWLSO, all geared toward improving access to learning by pupils and students in the state.
The transistor radios, face masks and cash donation were in response to the challenges thrown up by COVID-19 pandemic, as it affected education sector in the state.
The transistor radios and face masks, which were donated by COWLSO in partnership with the Office of Lagos State First Lady, to the Ministry of Education, would be distributed across the state, especially in the hard-to-reach areas, including riverine areas.
The governor commended COWLSO for the laudable initiative to play up the education of children in the state and was optimistic that it would enhance access to educational contents on radio.
”What COWLSO is donating is to improve and enhance the learning capability of the children and so we are excited that they have been able to put this together for the students.
”I understand that this is the first batch, others will come in. This is a new norm and so we need to adapt to the new realities of where we found ourselves.
”So this is part of adaptability and innovation has to come to learning.
”What we are doing now is as much as possible, learning can be done offsite and so it is just something to make our children get themselves busy.
”It is to make them have the tool, have an app, have a phone and have a radio and whatever it means to communicate; such that at the agreed time and in the comfort of their learning environment, they can tune in, they can listen, they can take notes, they can interact and be in tune,” he said.
Sanwo-Olu said that the donation by COWLSO would greatly help students to be abreast of all of the things happening, as far as their education was concerned, since schools were physically not operating for now.
On her part, the First Lady of Lagos State, Dr Ibijoke Sanwo-Olu, said that the initiative to donate the transistor radios was borne out of the desire to ensure that no child was left behind in the access to quality education in the state.
The First Lady, who is also COWLSO Chairman, said that the 5,000 face masks and the cash donation would help to ease the burden of parents and guardians and the students in this era of the new normal.
She said that statistics confirmed that there were over a million children at home during this pandemic period not going to school for the past three months, while students preparing for WAEC and JAMB examinations had equally been affected.
According to her, in this new normal, the Ministry of Education had gone ahead to improve on e-learning, loading the Nigerian curriculum on to some platforms.
Mrs Sanwo-Olu said that this was in a bid to reach out to more students in the rural and riverine areas numbering about 200,000 across Lagos State in the primary and Secondary schools in Ibeju Lekki, Epe, Ikorodu, Badagry, Agege, among others.
The First Lady said that COWLSO had come on board to assist with transistor radios, so that students would have access to educational programmes on radio.
”During the first phase of the lockdown, COWLSO took part in distributing palliatives. We distributed food items, hand sanitisers and everything that needed to be distributed.
”However, we were still worried about the education of our children now that they are not going to school.
”We just don’t want to stop at giving palliatives; we wanted to move further and so we decided to donate radio transistors with batteries to ease the leaning of the children, since we learnt that the Ministry of Education had perfected partnership with some radio stations,” Sanwo-Olu said.
She urged corporate organisations, religious bodies and human rights activists, among others, to come to the plight of the children by joining hands with the government to play up education, with a view to engender a better future for students in the state.
The COWLSO chairman commended the teachers for the time invested in education and charged students to reciprocate the efforts of government to scale up their education by coming out with better grades.
Earlier, the Commissioner for Education, Mrs Folasade Adefisayo, commended the First Lady and COWLSO members for the donations.
Adefisayo said that it would perfectly key into efforts to improve access to education for pupils and students, considering that some radio stations had signed on to the learning programmes initiated by the ministry to engage students throughout the pandemic period.
She also said that the ministry was working on establishing a Radio Station that would be solely dedicated to education to expand time for airing of educational contents and improve access for students. (NAN)
