Adefisayo Tasks Researchers on Data

 

The Lagos state commissioner for Education, Mrs. Abimbola  Adefisayo has tasked researchers on the need to make available important data in the education sector in order to know where the current education challenges are and this be able to potter solution to them.

Specifically Adefesayo pointed out that some learning challenges  which she described as a learning crisis like: autism, dyslexia, numeracy and literacy are some of the challenges that some learners are grappling with but sadly, there are no available data to know the number of pupils or learners having these challenges.

Mrs. Adefisayo was speaking at a programme recently organized by the International Association of Social and Education Research (IASER) at the LCCI, Alansa. 

Speaking further, Adefisayo said that there is so much learning crisis in the education sector especially in the area of numeracy and literacy, which should be addressed urgently.

Buttressing this, she said while running a school in Osun when she was an administrator, she came across an SS2 pupil who could not read. According to her, the onus lies in the teachers to see how the teaching-learning process could be improved.

Talking about how Lagos state has re-invigorate and innovate learning when she took over the mantle of leadership as the Commissioner of Education Adefisayo said, “technology” has had a positive and impactful stride on education in the state saying that the students in the education district that maximized technology performed better in the last WASSCE examination that the students  in the education district did not make use of it.

In her rhetoric to the participant she asked “What do we do with technology? Adefisayo said that the Lagos state Ministry of education has been able to maximize technology to innovate learning by making use of the Zoom, YouTube, WhatsApp and other social media even during the COVID pandemic, where education was at its lowest ebb.

On how the ministry was able to do this, she said when she came in as the commissioner of education ‘data’ was a problem and to solve this problem, the ministry partner with MTN to provide data for three years, which they did although it wasn’t sustainable enough. But it went a long way to helping them innovate learning.

Challenging audience who are mainly researchers and academic scholars, the commissioner said that there could be a nexus between the ‘gown’ and the ‘town’ and it is the duty of the academics to find such connection in order to change the current narrative.

 On a final note, Adefisayo said the role of IASER as an organization would be more impactful if they take their crusade to private schools where are dearth of researchers. She made a disclosure where she attended a programme recently organized by the Association of Private Education in Nigeria (APEN), and there was no single researcher at that meeting.