To ensure a conducive and secured environment for learning, the Lagos State Government has through its Special Committee on Rehabilitation of Public School (SCRPS) began modular building construction in public schools. One of such was at Vetland Junior Grammar School, Agege, while others are to be replicated in all the education districts. The Chairman of SCRPS, Mr. Hakeem Smith, who disclosed during a briefing on the committee’s achievements in the last one year, said the committee, established in 2004 by the Tinubu led administration as an intervention body has made giant strides in addressing the numerous infrastructural decays in Lagos public schools. With education and technology ranking uppermost in the Babajide Sanwo-Olu Administration’s T.H.E.M.E.S Agenda, he said, the committee’s focus was classified into six different areas namely; construction of new classroom blocks where there are shortfalls, rehabilitation of old and dilapidated classroom blocks, completion of abandoned classroom blocks, emergency works, construction of new schools in communities where non-existed and provision of students, teachers and principal’s furniture and other relevant initiatives. According to him, after the visitation to schools for needs assessment, a comprehensive list was generated for Year 2020 projects and divided into phase one and two. The phase one of the projects, Smith said, took off and comprises about 300 new classrooms, with on going construction of hostels, provision of about 100,000 student furniture in secondary and primary schools as well as emergency intervention in 42 schools in Lagos state public primary and secondary schools with varying classrooms per schools. Mr. Smith stressed that the on-going schools rehabilitation programme in the state at various sites have in no small measure contributed to the socio-economic outlook of the state.x The construction industry, he said, helps the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of any country, hence, the schools rehabilitation projects through the primary objective of erecting of structures in public schools has created numerous value chains of employment ranging from suppliers of building materials, bricklayers, tillers, carpenters and food vendors and others He stressed that the year 2020, was a challenging one globally because of the corona virus outbreak, which grounded the world economy. Yet we made substantial progress with our phase one of the projects. “To date, the construction of about 300 classrooms is at various stages of completion. The constructions of seven new hostel blocks, which will provide about 1, 400 bedding, are also nearing completion in the model colleges. In addition, the construction of eight watchtowers with alarm bells and perimeter fences to enhance security are already in place in those schools.
