Lagos education commissioner advocates 21st Century skills for pupils.
This news was culled from The Nation’s Newspaper’s publication of Aug 25, 2022
The Lagos State Commissioner for Education, Mrs. Folashade Adefisayo, has canvassed the need for public and private schools to rethink what they teach pupils to ensure they inculcate in them 21st Century skills.
Mrs. Adefisayo stated this yesterday at yearly Continuous Development Training for Educators by World Organisation for Early Childhood Education (OMEP), Lagos State Chapter.
The theme of this year’s training is: “Early Childhood Education in the 21st Century: Inspire, Explore and Create”.
The commissioner said such skills must be integrated in learning whether in nursery, primary or secondary school education.
She mentioned a few of them, including creating creative and critical thinking, collaboration and team-work, digital literacy, personal leadership and ability to tackle challenges.
She advised teachers to teach the pupils about climate change and environmental sustainability to enable them to contribute solutions to global warming, flooding and refuse disposal.
The commissioner said the state government would collaborate with the association in the areas of training and best practices for quality education.
According to her, public school teachers were sponsored to the training to enable them to benefit from the programme.
She congratulated the organisation for concentrating on early child education for many years.
The commissioner said she loved their slogan, which is “Low cost, no cost” designed to make learning affordable and sustainable.
“With the training, you are looking at all sorts of solutions that can be deployed in the classrooms. So, I greet and thank you for that,” she said.
According to her, Lagos State has over 50,000 teachers in its employ and the state government is embarking on a comprehensive system of education.
OMEP Nigeria President Mrs. Olatokunbo Doherty said the association is working on sustainable education, training, advocacy and fighting for the rights of children.
Mrs. Doherty appealed to the commissioner to collaborate with the association to institute better and quality education in the state.
She stated that Nigeria’s Chapter of OMEP won an award at the association’s last international conference.
Mrs. Bola Falore, the President of OMEP Nigeria, Lagos Chapter, in her welcome address, said the training will serve as a platform for educators to learn and acquire new skills on early childhood education and also gain the professional knowledge required to progress in their careers.
“The training will cover some interesting and insightful topics such as Exploring 21st Century Skills in Early Childhood Education & Primary through Reflective Practices, Classroom Assessment Techniques in Early Childhood and Primary Education Perspective and Crisis Management in Modern School Environment.”
“The challenges faced in our education sector are numerous but within these three days, we will strive to proffer solutions to some of them.
“To do justice to the topics, I have earlier enumerated, OMEP Nigeria Lagos State Chapter has been careful to select seasoned and tested educationists to handle each of the sessions,” she said.
Executive Chairman of Lagos State Universal Basic Education Board (LASUBEB) Wahab Alawiye-King advised the teachers to implement in the classroom what they were being trained.
