Enrolment Drops In Lagos Public Schools
There has been a drop in enrolment of pupils and students in Lagos State public primary and secondary schools.
Statistics released by the Lagos State Government, South West Nigeria, shows that last year, the number of students in public primary and secondary schools dropped drastically.
The report shows that parents prefer to take their children to the private schools across the state and have faith in them than public schools because of poor standard of education.
In 2007, the number of pupils who enrolled in public primary schools in Lagos State was 454, 808 while it rose to 466,201 in 2008 and a further rose to 479,256 in 2009 while it nose-dived to 445,044 in 2010.
Enrolment in Junior Secondary Schools, JSS, in the state also dropped drastically last year. In 2007, the number of students in JSS was 324,444 and rose to 327825 in 2008. It rose again to 339,277 in 2009 and dropped to drastically to 320,183 last year.
In the Senior Secondary School, SSS, the enrolment also dropped to 254,588 last year from the previous 255,588 in 2009. In 2007, the attendance in SSS was 251,583 and rose to 261,993 in 2008. Also, the number of trained teachers in Lagos State between 2007 and 2010 dropped drastically, showing that government is no longer laying more emphasis on training and retraining of teachers in public schools.
In 2007, the number of trained teachers was 17,577, 17,298 in 2008 and dropped to 14,913 in 2009, while there was no record of any teacher trained in 2010. Furthermore, records from the state government show that N187.193 billion was budgeted for education between 2007 and 2010 with about N99.955 billion spent on executing capital projects in schools across the state.
With this amount, the government said it provided 2,500 new prototype classrooms; over 1,000 classrooms;166 school structures erected under the “Adopt- a- School†Policy; six Multi-lingual Laboratories in each of the six Education Districts for French, Arabic & Mandarin studies constructed and equipped and five Government Technical and Vocational Colleges rehabilitated.
Others include 49,788 teachers trained; 4.2m free text books distributed in 1,664 public schools; 46,505 student’s furniture supplied to schools; inauguration of Education Summit as a forum for generating fresh ideas by stakeholders towards uplifting the standard of education; N883.1million paid as exam fee for students from 2008 to 2010 and N5 billion Pension arrears paid to teaching/non teaching primary school and local government retirees in 2010.
Government added that there had been improved student learning environment; UBE Law making primary and junior school enrollment mandatory enacted; over 90% access to use of free text books; students stay in school longer; standard of living for teachers and pensioners and enhanced motivation; student/teacher ratio (primary) was stable at 28:1(2007) to 2010; Student/teacher ratio (junior) decreased from 40:1(2007) to 34:1(2010) and student/teacher ratio (senior) decreased from 30:1(2007) to 26:1 (2010).
Others are: WAEC candidates achieving five credits including English and Mathematics at first sitting increased from 7% to 21% (Y2007-2010); enhanced students’ self esteem, self confidence and ability to read; staying longer in school has led to reduction of students’ involvement in crime; Lagos State now has the highest Adult Literacy Index (89.9%) in Nigeria and higher probability of job and financial independence for its populace.
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