BusinessDay... the voice of business: LMDGP to spend N2.8m on schools reconstruction

LMDGP to spend N2.8m on schools reconstruction
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CHUKA UROKO on 21 April, 2008 12:00:00
 
LMDGP is a World Bank assisted project with the objective of increasing
sustainable access to basic urban services through investment in critical
infrastructure in selected slum areas of the state.
Lagos deputy governor, Sarah Sosan who disclosed this in her address at an
interactive education forum organised by LMDGP also stated that the project’s
collaboration with the education sector and other sectors within and outside the
state government stemmed from the determination to increase access to basic
urban services through investment in critical infrastructure.
As a result, she said, “it is binding on us to ensure that the
infrastructural needs of our schools be adequately catered for in order to
enhance the mental capabilities of the up-coming generation of leaders and
managers of the state and the nation at large”.
The condition of schools in the nine identified slum areas in the state,
particularly Iwaya, Ajengunle and Amukoko is better imagined than expressed.
These are areas where schools have leaking roofs and dilapidated walls, and
during rainy season, the classrooms are flooded.
The deputy governor noted that in conformity with the state’s slogan of
“Partnership for Development,” LMDGP was partnering with the education
sector in the state to rehabilitate dilapidated schools and reconstruct those
that had been professionally declared structurally defective.
She disclosed that before the present intervention, LMDGP under its social
sustainability programme supplied 1,350 pupils’ benches and desks to schools
within their identified nine slums, adding that the project also supplied 34
teachers’ tables and chairs just as the schools to be rehabilitated and
reconstructed were also to be supplied with those items.
Earlier, the LMDGP’s project director, Kehinde Akinola, had observed that
none of the schools where interventions were carried out was connected to the
grid of Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN), pointing out that the situation
had led to the reluctance of LMDGP to install already procured electrical
gadgets to the schools.
He said with the installation of transformers and connection to the national
grid by LMDGP, the schools would be able to take advantage of the desktop
computers to be distributed by the project.
The deputy governor, meanwhile, has assured all stakeholders in the state’s
education system that the collaborative efforts of LMDGP with the World Bank,
the Federal Government, local governments, component executing agencies within
the state and the education sector as well as the various communities would be
pursued by the state government in order to realize its vision.
She informed that the passion of Lagos state government was to improve public
schools, develop and equip them to standards comparable and competitive with
private schools as it was in the past, adding that this passion was being
pursued through various government policies and programmes as well as special
projects such as Eko project on education and the LMDGP.