Majority of the public schools in Lagos are in dire need of facelift. As a body responsible for the management of public schools what are you doing to address these challenges?
Lagos is a fast growing city and when we talk about a growing city, we’re talking about first and foremost, the enormous population of the state. Don’t forget it’s not only about the state but about other states within the federation that come around to live in Lagos. People from neighbouring countries also appear in Lagos and that gives room for expansion that would be required in all our school facilities. With this in mind, the government of His Excellency has shown more concern and is passionate about the sector. He has the governor has given special funds for renovation of new buildings, new ones and purchase of furniture and even employment of personnel. In the last two years, the Lagos state government has employed a total of 2, 500 teachers for both primary and secondary schools, 1,300 for primary schools and 1,200 for secondary schools respectively.
All these are unprecedented because in most states, they even find it difficult to pay salaries, how much more employing new ones. So this is one major effort because for effective teaching and learning there must be adequate teaching staff. Apart from all of this, government motivates teachers and other staff for them to be able to deliver by prompt payment of salaries, by rewarding the staff that needs to be rewarded through the annual merit award ceremony.
The point is, this is a problem that did not start in a day; it has been there for a long time. And as we are trying to put things in order, other things are coming up. Don’t forget, we have hoodlums around. The government is trying to contain them and as we are doing that they come around again to go and spoil these facilities. Just last week, a school came and reported a situation where some people vandalised the furniture in the classrooms just because they wanted to sat down and watch their other colleagues playing football. These are some of the things that are compounding efforts so we have some many things to contend with. Issues of these hoodlums, issues of population explosion in our schools, and with that
Despite that we are not relenting. Just last week, the governor approved the sum of N1.7billion for construction of new schools, renovation of the dilapidated ones and purchase of furniture and so on and so forth.
But yes, we will continue to have these challenge one because from time to time people want to come to Lagos and again let me tell you because of the various things we have been able to do, our population is now growing in schools because the majority of our children are now leaving private schools for public schools and that another challenge for us because our classrooms, the population in the classroom will be bloated. And that require more teachers, more furniture, more teaching materials and so many things like that.
But I want to assure you that His Excellency is so passionate about education and he is doing all he can and that is what informed the release of these funds just last week. Very soon now, some of these schools you are talking about now you will begin to see contractors working on them. So this is what we have been able to do so far.
There have been a lot of hues and cries over the implementation of SUBEB Action Plan by some stakeholders who have argued that SUBEB is running a one-man show as far as the implementation of the Action Plan is concerned. Do you share such sentiments?
Yes, we have robust Action Plans. Of course, if organisations like this and a state like this if we don’t have an Action Plan we can’t go far. In a state like this, we have plans for everything. Not only in the education sector but also in other sectors of governance in Lagos state. In the basic education sector, our plans are very robust and even the Ministry of Education has given commendations for the plans we have and these plans we do not just have them, we work assiduously to ensure that we achieve results on our plans. I wonder who would say they do not know about our Action Plans.
The question is that if you have Action Plans, majority of the stakeholders are not part of implementation process…
Perhaps those saying that have not reached out to us. Like I told you initially, we also want to use this opportunity to thank those individuals and organisations that have been working with us. We have the HDI for example, a non-governmental organisation that work with us and we work together through the plans we have. They relate with us and so do many other organisations and individuals. And that is the reason why we have, those people that have not been able to reach out to us because we welcome contributions from individuals and organisations but it has to be within our own ideologies.
What is the level of awareness about your Action Plans?
Well, maybe I should use this opportunity to advise the general public that we have our website, we have the SUBEB website. Apart from our website, we are available on Messenger, Face book, Instagram. In all of these platforms you’ll see our plans on them. And not only the work plans, some of those things that we are doing and those that we have done are there. As soon as we do anything, we put it on the social media to carry people along, to let them know things we are doing. When we have knocks we know, when we have commendations we also know. Apart from that, we are always being invited by media group such as TV, the radio and so on to find out from us from time to time. Just about a month ago, I was at LTV8 on a Yoruba programme where we were able to answer questions from people at home. And we welcome ideas, contributions from everybody. A lot of people write us, send text messages to hint us about latest happenings and suggest what they think we can do about them and we do reply and thank them and sometimes invite them over and it has been very rewarding doing this with people.
Can you tell us the process required to carry out infrastructure upgrade in schools?
What we normally do is, the schools are always involved even the PTA and so on, they are all involved directly or indirectly. We have our own team including the project team, special duty team and the quality assurance team. All of these teams go round our schools to ensure quality of teaching and learning and ensure that our facilities too are maintained, give advice to them and where they need to have something done for them, they do report to us. So when we have all these reports apart from their own letter which they might write to us, we’d write to His Excellency and don’t forget apart from UBEC fund which I earlier mentioned, Lagos state government also on her own releases fund for projects. That was just done 2015, special fund were released. Apart from UBEC fund and that is why you will see UBEC/SUBEB inscribed in projects by these two bodies. So when this approval is now given what we do is we advertised to follow the due procurement process. We invite contractors to come and bid, so if any PTA chairman is a contractor, he’s free to apply. And just recently, we opened bids to interested contractors on our Facebook page. So it’s not something that is hidden, it’s transparent. The representative of the Executive Secretary of UBEC was around and so also was the representative of procurement agency and government agency. All of these contractors and even non-governmental organisations were around to come and be a part of the opening bid and that was done. These are very transparent and at the end of the day if any contractor get contracts, we’ll give them letters, we’ll copy the Education Secretary of the local government areas where the school is situated we’ll copy the Secretary of the school. We are not obliged to write to Parents Forum, to ask or show them whatever we are doing but indirectly they know too because through the head teachers they will know that things are going on there. And in most cases I must tell you they have been very grateful to His Excellency, there has been no complain between us. In fact, we have the best relationship in Nigeria with the School Based Management Committee and Parent Forum it is in Lagos state that we work together for the benefit of schools.
Can you tell us what your management style is?
My own management style is very simple it is collaborative style of management. We are not doing things alone, all of us including the staff and from time to time we meet with our staff not only within the SUBEB headquarter with education secretaries, head teachers. Very soon we want to introduce another measure of even meeting with teachers in schools because of population we will not be able to meet all of them once. We are planning that we’ll be meeting teachers in local government areas maybe two teachers from each school in a particular local government area and let them know what and what going on. Even those that believe that our meeting with the head teachers of schools is suppose to be transparent to teachers but we want to bring them in to have sense of belongings that they are part of the process and we are hoping that before the month runs out we want to meet with them and talk to them, plan for them and we’ll then be better for it. Apart from that, like I told you my office is always open. If anyone has anything, of course majority have been coming around for one thing and the other. On our Facebook page, you will see a lot comments and commendations from them, and that tells you that you have these followers, all of them are happy. It is because of the inclusive style of administration that we are running. And let me add this, perhaps for e-top, the universal basic education board in conjunction with federal ministry of education awarded me the best SUBEB chairman in the south west. That tells you that one is doing his little best and it is being recognised and the only challenge there is one to build on what we are doing. I must tell you sincerely I’m always thankful to God and His Excellency, the governor for putting me there, it shows that he has that believe in me and for also giving the me the support that I need, regular salary, supporting merit award, training and giving special fund apart from giving counterpart fund. I also recognize the support from Her Excellency, the deputy governor who superintend over education in Lagos state. So also my staff are very supportive.
How do you motivate your staff, do you apply stick and carrot approach?
Of course, one thing they know me for is I don’t tolerate indolence; you just have to be ready to work. And I think over time with this short time that I have been here, they have known that and a lot of them have brazened up to work. When we came here, it wasn’t like that it was a different story. But we don’t need t quarrel with them or we did is to encourage and advise them. And personal effort too to motivate them, I do, so all of this makes the whole work to be going on. We cannot do without having some bad eggs but I believe by the grace of God, we’ve been able to reach very reasonable level. They have been committed to work. One of the best ways of motivating them is what you see here renovation in work environment.
What legacy do you want to leave behind at SUBEB?
That legacy I have started building and it’s already taking root during the series of training we’ve had. It is to have passion for what we are doing and do it with interest and we beginning to see it in the staff even within the school environment teachers, head teachers and staff of the local government areas are now developing passion, ensuring that you do your bit within a given timeframe. We don’t encourage staff from anywhere within the basic education sector to come to the headquarters during work period, morning to about 2’0 clock in the afternoon so that they can do their own work and we can do our own work too. I ensure that all the files that come to my table I treat them promptly. We live by example, in the morning before I come to office, on most occasions I take time to visit schools just to go and mentor to go and commend where I see good work I give commendation and where I see lapses I tell them and advise them on how to go about it and people are happy for it. Though I may not be able to visit all schools but those I have visited they will call their colleagues and hint them about my visit, so this puts all of them on their toes and I’m happy about it.
