Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu has reiterated the commitment of his administration to close learning gaps between public and private schools for effective delivery of qualitative and quantitative education.

The Governor disclosed this in his remarks at the opening session of the 10th Annual Conference of the Association of Private Educators of Nigeria (APEN) tagged: “Global Classroom 2030: Vehicle to Attitudes, Knowledge, Skills and Values”, held at Lagos Business School, Ajah.

Sanwo-Olu, represented at the two-day event by the Director-General, Office of Education Quality Assurance, Mrs. Abiola Seriki-Ayeni, expressed the government’s resolve to collaborate with the private sector to drive tailored policies and programmes towards creating an enabling environment for teaching and learning in Lagos Schools below tertiary level.

He also revealed the determination of the government to build enduring processes and structures that will ensure sustainability aimed at improving the quality of education in Lagos State.

According to him, the teaching profession will be made a functional model of knowledge transfer and the curriculum must reflect needs that will positively influence the present educational system while infrastructure must be effectively upgraded to create enabling study environment for the students.

“As a responsible government, we have resolved to tackle the challenges through combining innovative technology, training and scientifically based approaches to raise the bar of teaching and learning in our schools”, he added.

Governor Sanwo-Olu, therefore, called for the support and cooperation of all stakeholders in the sector, saying that “As partners, we will appreciate your continued commitment in achieving our collective aim of making education effective and efficient for the benefit of our citizens”.

In her welcome address, the Chairman of APEN and Managing Director of Oxbridge Tutorial College, Dr. Olufemi Ogunsanya said the “Global Classroom 2030 Initiative” must go beyond the simple acquisition of knowledge in order to equip the students with the ability to have a deeper insight into things as well as specialised ways of understanding the world we live in.

“In the futuristic classroom, the curriculum must not only focus on developing cognitive and metacognitive skills such as learning strategies, critical thinking, problem-solving, organisational as well as communication skills but must also prepare students in their respective fields for the problems they should be trying to solve”, Ogunsanya said.

Guest speakers at the conference, which had no fewer than 300 delegates, included Dr. Sam Ikoku, CEO Nakachi Consulting; Mrs. Nimi Akinkugbe, CEO BestMan Ltd; Christine Nasserghodsi & Asha Sanjay, MIRAI Partners, UAE and Helen McGuigan, Lead Consultant, Simply Education Ltd. amongst others.