Teachers, principals, vice principals, administrators and pupils that were outstanding in 2014 were celebrated during the 9th Annual Merit Award of the Lagos State Education District I recently.
They were presented with certificates and gifts such as freezers, washing machines, flat screen television, among others at the well-attended event held at the school hall Government Senior College, Agege.
Tutor General/Permanent Secretary of the district, Mrs Florence Ogunfidodo, said the programme was a platform to reward deserving workers and pupils who had excelled to motivate them to do even more.
In an interview with The Nation, she said the workers were deserving of reward for contributing to the laurels the district won in the past year, including producing the One Day Governor and the winner of the Lagos State Spelling Bee Competition, Idowu Sonoiki.
She urged the winners to mentor others to be like them.
“We are rewarding some of them that have been excellent. The reward of hard work is more work. They should work harder so that we remain on top and never go down as the district of excellence in the centre of excellence. For those not rewarded, I can only tell them to emulate the good works the others are doing. The awardees of today should mentor those ones that are not awarded today,” he said.
Chairman of the occasion, Mrs Bolajoko Falore, who is the Education Director of Mind Builders School, Omole, praised the workers for bringing honour to the district. She urged teachers present to do their work with excellence and sincerity.
“What kind of teacher are you? Are you one that does eye service and only works when the principal is around? When I was in the inspectorate, I told teachers that though their children may not be in their schools, they (the children) would meet teachers with their kind of attitude,” she said.
Mrs Falore instituted a prize of N20,000 each for the best non teaching staff in junior and senior secondary schools. She also promised to reward Sonoiki, an SS2 pupil of Ikotun Senior High School, Ikotun for winning the spelling bee.
Winner of the best principal (senior school category), Mr Emmanuel Adebiyi of Lagos Baptist Senior College, Ile-Epo, said he was not new to winning awards because of his consistency and passion for the job.
“I am a consistent manager. I have won many awards both at this local level, and the national level. I was conferred with a national honour last August – National Productivity Order of Merit – the only person from Lagos State. And since then I have been working assiduously to maintain that tempo that I have been maintaining for the past three or four years,” he said.
Best Teacher (senior secondary category), Mrs Kafilat Salaudeen of Sasa Senior High School, described her award as a great accomplishment. She attributed her win to good results of her pupils in Commerce, the subject she teaches.
“I won because of the performance of my students and my commitment to the job that I am doing. I make the subject to be real to the students, which assisted them a lot,” she said.
