Tag: Mrs Ronke Soyombo

Parents have key roles to play in laying solid foundation for their children. This can  be made possible through value orientation, which helps support the children’s natural development.

Director-General, Quality Control, Lagos State Ministry of Education Mrs Ronke Soyombo, is optimistic that once this is done, it would make the child more flexible to acquiring knowledge at nursery level, and ultimately make the caregivers’ job a lot easier.

Soyombo addressed parents in Ikorodu during the Aid to Life workshop by the Lagos State government in conjunction with Foundation Montessori Education in Nigeria (FMEN)

Aid to Life is an initiative of the Association of Montessori International (AMI) in Amsterdam,of which FMEN is an affiliate. The initiative aims to support every child’s natural development.

Addressing parents at the Ikorodu Local Government Education Authority; Soyombo underscored the theme of the workshop, ‘Effective parenting’, saying it is to again re-emphasies parents’ noble roles.

She reminded parents in attendance that Montessori education is simply how to make children independent, how they can be empowered to do things themselves.

Though Montessori education could be an expensive venture, Soyombo said parents could improvise by deploying local contents to educate the child, especially when such tutoring is done using the language of the environment.

She said: “When we talk of foundation age, we mean age 0 to 6 and for us to get it right, we need to carry the parents along. They need to inculcate good values in their children. With that, we can be able to build academics into it as well.

She continued:”When you say some children are not performing in their education, it is possible such children have been spoon-fed for too long. We, therefore, need the cooperation of our mothers, they’ve got to play their roles in inculcating values into our children at foundation stage. If a child is not given a solid foundation, he will be forced to read when he or she gets in to primary school. With that, such  a child can only decode but not comprehend, which is part of the problem we are having at present. We parents are too carried away chasing money, thereby forgetting the education of our kids’’.

Soyombo also advised parents to speak well of Nigeria, thereby giving the children a hope for the future, adding that parents must  tell them many distinguished personalities that the country boasts of.

Coordinator/Trustee Aid to life Mrs Yinka Awobo Pearse, said, regardless of the level of parents’ literacy, Montessori education could be invented via everyday interaction with the child.

“Children below age three need to develop their movement, communication, and independent skills. Once they are equipped with those skills, it will help them to become better learners when they eventually get into Nursery 1,” she said.

“When you bathe your child, you can ask him, ‘How many times do I scrub your back?” When you take him to school and you climb the stairs, you can ask him to count how many stairs you both leapt.  You can show him two buckets and ask him to tell you which is bigger or smaller’’.

Earlier, Chairperson of FMEN Bimpec Pogoson, said the workshop was inspired by the success of its maiden edition which held with parents in Agege in September last year.

Two of the parents in attendance, Mrs Fasakin Olamide and Mrs Fabian Nnena Ogwa, shared their experiences.

“I have learned not to use foul language on my husband particularly in the presence of my little children, because the child will learn the language and that will be his first pronouncement once he gets into school,” said Mrs Olamide.

“I was made to understand that this workshop is not about writing and writing but skill development of my child,” noted Mrs Ogwa.  “I also learn that a child under three years can learn three languages and cope, all I need is improved investment on them.

Only eight private schools among over 6,069 public and private schools that the Office of Quality Education Assurance (OEQA), Lagos State Ministry of Education assessed in the past year were found to be outstanding, the Director-General, OQEA, Mrs Ronke Soyombo, has said.

Speaking at the OEQA 2018 annual conference held at the 3Bees Event Eentre, Ketu, Mrs Soyombo, said the schools included Green Springs School, Chrisland School, Oxbridge Tutorial College, Meadows Hall School, Vivian Fowler Memorial College for Girls, and Oaksbridge School.

Mrs Soyombo said the schools came up tops in a whole school evaluation exercise that lasted three days in each school.  She also praised private schools for complying with the unified academic calendar of the Lagos State government.

“A total of 6,069 government and privae schools have been visited for whole school evaluation and teaching and learning monioring.  It is heartwarming to note that more than 44 percent of government schools were graded good. Also eight private schools have been graded outstanding in the Whole School evalution.  Performance of public secondary schools in public examinations has improved tremendously from 38 per cent in 2016 to 50.6 per cent in 2017.  Compliance of schools regarding the Unified calendar has improved tremendously,” she said.

Mrs Soyombo said the office assessed the schools using seven parameters including leadership and management, achievement and standard, teaching and learning among others

During the event, the OEQA presented awards to outstanding members of staff who had distinguished themselves as Quality Assurance officers and in other areas.  They included a security man, Julius Adugbe, who caught an impostor who had duped people in the past posing as a Quality Assurance officer; and Mr Anthony Ojeme, a Deputy Director who detected drug use in young children in public primary school while doing his Quality Assurance work.

The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Education, Mrs Adebunmi Adekanye praised the OEQA for working hard to quality-assure schools – rising to the occasion even at odd hours when the demand was pressing.

“In our world today everybody is a journalist.  The DG takes the brunt most of the time because I send her pictures from the social media and they have to work weekends. I commend you for this.  I also know evaluators are sent to ascertain if students in the boarding house really have beds and do not have to share.  To know this, they have to go late at night.  I say thank you,” she said.

Mrs Adekanye read the speech of the Deputy Governor, Dr Idiat Adebule, who praised the conference for providing a platform for evaluators to discuss issues in the education sector.

“As professionals, we must constantly come up with strategies and sustainable ways to mitigate challenges that may not help us deliver the desired results in the sector,” she said.

Speaking on the theme: “The role of evaluator in the transformation of education in the 21st century”, guest lecturer, Dr Femi Ogunsanya, said Lagos State was running Quality Assurance properly.  She underscored the importance of evaluation to maintain quality in a system.

“Evaluation is used to increase transparency, strengthen accountability, and used to increase competition.  It is used to ensure children we are preparing are well prepared,” she said.

She said evaluators should ensure schools are teaching children skills like critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and communication, compassion, character, citizenship and computational skills needed to function in the jobs of the future.