‘Why We Have Mass Failure In Lagos Schools’

The non-usage of instructional materials by teachers during lessons has been identified as one of the factors responsible for mass failure among students in all subjects in Lagos Schools.

“This is awful and very discouraging because there are numerous instructional media that the teachers could use to enrich their lessons without spending much,” said Mrs. Sidikatu Abiola, Director, Lagos State Educational Resource Centre.

She spoke at the two-day Lagos State Festival of Instructional Materials held at the Lagos State Auditorium, Secretariat, Alausa, Ikeja, Lagos in Nigeria.

According to Abiola, “it is therefore very annoying when most teachers always claimed that they could not lay their hands on any instructional materials because of shortage of fund.

The festival is designed to encourage local production and utilisation of instructional media at all levels of education system in Lagos State.

It also aimed to enhance healthy competition among teachers, students, artisans, among others in the production of instructional materials.

“This festival is not for merry making alone, but for the participants to come up with different instructional media that could be mass-produced and distributed to schools in the state with the sole purpose of enhancing the education of our students,” she added.

According to her, the festival would prove further the essence of improvisation and the need for teachers to imbibe the culture of using instructional media to convey their messages to their students.

Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Education, Mrs. Omolara Erogbogbo said the festival became imperative in view of the global economic recession which is having adverse effects on the finances of all governments and institutions all over the world.

“In order to overcome these economic challenges, there is an urgent need to encourage our youths to be more proactive in creating new instructional materials that could help in educating the present and unborn generations.

“Instructional media material are without doubt essential parts of modern teaching and learning process because they offer experiences not easily secured by other materials and they contribute immensely to the efficiency, depth and variety of training,” she stated.

She stated that the state government voted huge budget for the upgrading of the State Educational Resource Centre with the state of the art technology to enable it organise fresh courses for teachers on the use of instructional materials.