The Governor of Lagos State, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has highlighted the benefits of the transformational primary school education initiative, EKOEXCEL, which was launched in 2019.
In an article titled ‘Africa’s Youth Potential is Huge. We must ensure that they learn,” he wrote and published on wise-qatar.org, Sanwo-Olu explained how his government has improved basic education and the milestones that have been recorded with EKOEXCEL.
WISE is an international multi-sectoral platform for creative thinking, debate and purposeful action. The platform owned by the Qatar Foundation has become a global reference in a new approach to education.
Through the biennial Summit and the various programs it runs, WISE promotes innovation and builds the future of education through collaboration.
In a statement, on Sunday, the governor explained that knowing that the country needs an education system that provides learning to achieve prosperity, growth and security, he made it a priority.
His administration, he added, focused on improving enrollment and learning outcomes, which led to the launch of EKOEXCEL.
The governor announced that the initiative started with increasing teachers before moving on to students. He said: “We start with teachers. The quality of our education cannot exceed the quality of educators, and we know that the best support for teachers is important. More than 14,000 teachers have been trained and improved in proven teaching techniques.
Each one is powered to teach world-class quality lessons, with the same curriculum and lesson notes based on cutting-edge pedagogy delivered via the teacher’s tablet.
“EKOEXCEL leaders can track student performance and several other important indicators, including teacher attendance, student attendance and lesson completion.”
The governor added that with “the strong support of teachers, school leaders and unions, we have expanded EKOEXCEL to cover every public primary school in Lagos State – over 1,000 schools, to over 350,000 students.” The results, he continued, “have been very good.
“The endline test found that after two years, despite the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the average EKOEXCEL 3rd grade student can read with almost the same level of fluency as the average 5th grade student from before the program was launched”. Sanwo- Olu further noted that studies, including those conducted by the Nobel Prize-winning economist, Professor Michael Kremer, have confirmed that EKOEXCE improves learning outcomes.
“The study found learning outcomes ‘among the highest measured in international education’ when tracking learning outcomes in schools in Kenya.” than girls in other schools.”
The governor added that Lagos is proud of its achievements because it has shown that system transformation is possible and that learning outcomes can change quickly and at scale.
“I believe our model, which was born from the Global South and led by African leaders, provides an example of how others can and should lead to reform the education system. With the demographic challenges of Nigeria and Africa, this has never been more important,” he said.