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The Chairman of the Lagos State Universal Basic Education Board, Hon.Wahab Alawiye-King has assured parents and Lagosians as a whole of a new dawn in the State Primary Education system, saying that teachers across state government-owned schools are now better informed and prepared for the demands and expectations of the 21st primary education system.

Alawiye-King gave this assurance on Monday when he visited some schools around Maryland for the inspection of the level of compliance to the resumption date by teachers and pupils of primary schools across the State.

He thanked parents for their cooperation with the state government during the period of postponement of the earlier given resumption date, saying that the delay was in the best interest of the teachers and school pupils.

He was optimistic that with the intellectual and technological exposure given to the teachers at the EKOEXCEL training programme, pupils of the State Government-owned primary schools can now compete with any of their contemporaries.

EkoExcel which stands for Excellence in Child Education and Learning is an Education transformation programme of the Babajide Sanwo-Olu led administration aimed at repositioning Basic Education in Lagos State by enhancing teachers’ effectiveness through technology.

The Lagos SUBEB Chairman advised parents to always prepare their children early for schools, noting that absenteeism and lateness to school would no longer be condoned as the technological device given to all the teachers by the state government would be monitoring the activities of all the pupils including their punctuality

“Also, teachers should note that absenteeism and lateness are now things of the past in our schools because the electronic devices in their hands now record their resumption time, supervise the time they spend in classes and their presence in schools.

” EkoExcel is a paradigm shift from the norms. It is a multifaceted, multi dimensional approach to teaching and learning in our classrooms. The introduction of technology into teaching is a total departure from the traditional way of teaching in the classroom” Alawiye-King added.

The HeadTeacher one of the schools visited, St Francis Nursery and Primary School, Maryland, Mrs. Balogun Lydia said that the teachers now have the mandate of ensuring that every Pupil is proficient in reading, writing and speaking good English.

While commending the impressive turn out of the school pupils at the early hours of the first day of resumption, the HeadTeacher disclosed that the teachers had resumed earlier and had put some preparations in place to ensure a seamless resumption for the school and pupils.

Also one of the teachers of the school who participated in the EkoExcel training, Mr. Zakariyah Isiaq Temitope averred that the exposure given to the teachers during the training exercise was aimed at building intellectually and moral upright school pupils.

” Government has now introduced Character Boards into all our classes where the names of well behaved pupils would be written and celebrated just as the names of disobedient pupils would also be written, ” the teacher stated.

He explained that the intention of government was to make the pupils aspire to have their names written for good conduct and subsequently get celebrated, stressing, that the initiative would promote a healthy rivalry for good conduct.

He added that the idea as ordinary as it appears, would be a good way or strategy of addressing the rate moral decadence within the society and will serve as an avenue of correcting the wrongs and ills prevalent in the society today.