The Project Coordinator for Human Development Initiative (HDI), Samuel Ajayi, has called on the Lagos State government to increase funding for education to address infrastructure gap.

Ajayi made made the call as the world marked World Teachers’ Day on 5 October, 2020.

‘Without a new generation of motivated teachers, millions of children in Lagos State will miss out on quality education and will continue to miss out unless adequate measures are taken urgently to restore dignity and professionalism into teaching service’, he said.

On the development and implementation of sustainable development initiatives in the education system, Ajayi said that teachers should be treated with the utmost importance.

He said, ‘Teachers play pivotal roles in ensuring the delivery of the global sustainable development goal of ensuring quality education for all by 2030.

‘This goal cannot be achieved in the face of rising attrition rate of professional teachers, the domination of the profession by non-professionals, and a weak institutional system to promote cooperative teaching’.

He urged the state government to enforce compliance to the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN) Act in the recruitment of teachers in both public and private schools as part of efforts to standardise the teaching profession.

He also recommended that the teachers’ education curriculum in higher institutions be ‘overhauled and rejigged’, and that cooperative teaching manual should be developed and introduced, while special incentives for special need teachers should be introduced to attract skilled professionals amongst other recommendations.

Source: NAN

Photo source: World Bank