The Lagos State Universal Basic Education Board (LASUBEB) has felicitated teachers on the 2022 Teachers’ Day and restated its commitment to further upskilling them through its innovative and transformational EKOEXCEL initiative.
Since its launch in 2019 by Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, EKOEXCEL has upskilled over 18,000 headteachers and teachers from analogue to digital teaching, using tablets and updated curricula. It has also captured over 14,000 teachers from 1,012 public primary schools and enhanced the teacher-pupil interaction experience through technology (eLearning) in Lagos State primary schools.
Felicitating teachers on the 2022 Teachers’ Day themed ‘The transformation of education begins with teachers’, LASUBEB Chair, Honourable Wahab Alawiye-King, who has oversight over EKOEXCEL, lauded their invaluable role in educating Lagos pupils.
He noted that during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, Lagos teachers had demonstrated uncommon commitment to improving pupils with diligence.
The LASUBEB Chair also hailed the excellent working relationship between teachers in public primary schools under the EKOEXCEL programme, their parent body, the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) and the Board, saying it has proved beneficial to pupils.
“We can’t thank our teachers enough for their commitment and diligence. Their cooperation has helped greatly in the remarkable strides we have recorded in primary education in Lagos. EKOEXCEL has an excellent relationship with them and the NUT. We all remain committed to giving our pupils quality education that will stand them in good stead in the 21st century,” Alawiye-King said.
The EKOEXCEL intervention has aided uniformity and strict adherence to the curriculum. Teachers’ tablets are preloaded with lessons and content that can be effectively monitored for standardisation across Lagos’ public primary schools.
EKOEXCEL recently partnered with the state chapter of the NUT for the maiden edition of its annual lecture and award series themed ‘Development Through Education-Learning and Livelihood’.
Earlier, the NUT Chairman, Comrade Hassan Akintoye, had also attested to the transformational impacts of EKOEXCEL, noting, “Before the intervention, teaching was analogue. It was based on the competence of individual teachers manning the classroom, but the level of competence varies from one individual to another. The teachers have a standardised digital instrument that leads them to perform their duties. Because of the analogue method, you couldn’t thoroughly ascertain the performance standard, but with the introduction of the highly digitised EKOEXCEL, we now have that standard.
“Then, teaching and learning have become more pupil-centred. As you are teaching, you are also learning. The innovative technology has also enabled the teacher to learn because there is guidance.”
Through the EKOEXCEL programme, teachers have become more enthusiastic and innovative with their teaching methods, applying themselves in ways that make pupils enjoy going to school with improved learning gains. A fine example of such teachers is Mrs. Fauziyah Shade Adegeye, also known as Teacher Shade, who became an internet sensation over a viral video of her motivating her pupils to preserve, work-hard and be resilient on the road to success.
In the 2-minutes video, Teacher Shade could be seen rallying the pupils, while they responded accordingly.
Speaking on how the EKOEXCEL programme helped improve upon her teaching methods in a recent interview, Adegeye said “Teaching in lagos State schools has really helped me as a professional teacher, we have been exposed to a lot of professional training, seminars that i had no opportunity of experiencing as a private school teacher”
“When I joined the teaching service, what we used to do was manual writing of lesson notes which has been a tradition for years. One of the problems EKOEXCEL has come to solve is the introduction of innovation, as teachers had prior been using materials that they had been using for the past 5 – 10 years but EKOEXCEL has come to put a stop to that with tabs that are updated regularly, which has removed the stress of writing lesson notes” she added.
At this years’ Lagos State Annual Teachers’ Merits awards, Governor Sanwo-Olu presented 13 teachers and administrators with brand new SUVs and other prizes, rewarding them for excellence and diligence in teaching. Amongst the 13 were 4 public primary school teachers under the EKOEXCEL programme.
Speaking at the awards ceremony, Governor Sanwo-Olu said it was in line with his administration’s commitment to using education as a weapon to develop Lagos and influence the teaching profession.
Governor Sanwo-Olu said, “one of the game-changers in the education development plan of our administration is the EKOEXCEL programme designed to support teachers to achieve better learning outcomes across all our public primary schools. The EKOEXCEL 2020-2021 End line Fluency and Numeracy Evaluation has further justified the huge investment and affirmed the strategic interventions and impacts.
“Through EKOEXCEL, thousands of teachers are being up-skilled through re-training and the use of technology that supports and motivates them to succeed in their classrooms. This accentuates the importance of education to this administration and our continuous effort to strengthen the workforce’s capacity through employment opportunities for qualified teachers with a passion for teaching. We have also instilled local and international training for our teachers, creating an enabling environment for teaching and learning” he said.
LASUBEB also recently introduced the Instructional Leadership App that allows school leaders to monitor and respond to issues, including the percentage of lessons completed.
With the App’s introduction, Headteachers can now see data about their school’s performance compared to the highest performing school and navigate to their own teachers’ performance details.
The App also shows every scheduled lesson on a given day and indicates if it was completed. If it wasn’t, it lets the head teachers know the reason. When queried, the App answers how much of a Lesson Plan was delivered and how many minutes the teacher spent on the lesson compared to how many minutes were scheduled. Based on the answer to these two questions, the App determines whether the lesson is completed or not.
To further improve the welfare of teachers in commemoration of the 2022 Teachers’ Day celebration, the federal government has commenced the implementation of the 65 years retirement age and 40 years of pensionable service for teachers, coming on the heels of the UN-led Transforming Education Summit (TES), which also sought to draw public attention to the support teachers needed to fully contribute to educational transformation.
