The Lagos State Government has organised a Stakeholders’ Engagement forum on the review of its thirty-year-old education policy with the ultimate aim of presenting the complete update to the public soon.

Deputy Governor of Lagos State, Dr. Idiat Adebule, in her keynote address during the forum commended stakeholders for availing the government of their different opinions on the policy review, noting that the process of the review started with Need Analysis, which included issues that triggered the review as well as policy gaps.

She explained that the second step was the Policy Contact, which was an outreach to the experts and known stakeholders by the Ministry in January 2016 and identified the third stage as the Research and Drafting process where the State Government engaged experts in the field at a three-day retreat between 14th and 16th December 2017.

Adebule said the stakeholders’ consultation is the fourth level of the engagements for review and update of the 30-Year Education Policy.

In his remarks, the Guest Speaker and former Vice Chancellor of the Lagos State University, Ojo, Professor Peter Okebukola observed that the new draft of the Lagos State Education policy is the best in Nigeria and comparable to the top three education systems in the world.

He said his team reviewed the draft policy document and found that it is both contemporary and futuristic in orientation, stressing that it has provisions for the contemporary issues as well as future directions of education in Lagos State.

According to him, other distinct and distinguishing features of the draft were that the document was comprehensive, detailed and well aligned with the National Policy on Education in terms of structure and framework.

In her welcome address, the Permanent Secretary, Lagos State Ministry of Education, Mrs. Adebunmi Adekanye said the crux of the engagement and consultation with stakeholders at the event was to enable a robust review of the document to ensure the emergence of an enduring policy.

She revealed that the document will still go through a second stage of drafting where all contributions from the consultative forum and other inputs that might come in form of written documents will be considered.

The Permanent Secretary opined, therefore, that the document is still open to suggestions, adding that, even though the draft could not be released to everyone, experts and stakeholders are at liberty to make further contributions due to their experience on the field.

The second and last stages, according to her, are the presentation to the State Executive Council for Approval and subsequent presentation of the final document to the public, adding that the various steps have been diligently and painstakingly followed.

“Until the last two steps had been taken, the document is still open to ideas. Nothing is shrouded in secrecy”, she enthused.