The Director, Lagos State Agency for Mass Education, Mrs. Oluwakemi Kalesanwo, has said it is necessary for every Lagos resident to know how to read and write.
Kalesanso said this at the opening ceremony of a four-day conference for adult education facilitators.
The conference which was titled, ‘Innovative Strategies to Expanding Facilitators Access to Effective Teaching, Skills Development, Improved Enrolment and Retention of Adult Learners,’ aimed at training 200 facilitators each day.
She said, “Lagos is a mega city, everybody here should learn how to read and write. We have the unlearned, unskilled coming into Lagos and we are really working hard to meet up with their demands.”
She explained that the conference would tackle issue of low enrolment, retention of adult learners in the literacy centres.
Special Adviser to Lagos State Governor on Education, Mr Tokunbo Wahab, who was represented by the Permanent Secretary, Mr Kasali Adeniran, said the event was aimed at ensuring improved teaching skills for effective delivery of instructions for adult learners to be encouraged and retained for the period of learning.
Meanwhile, the AME has trained beneficiaries of its vocational skills acquisition in financial and soft skills needed for business success. Kalesanwo, explained that 700 newly certified entrepreneurs by the state government were trained in various financial skills required to grow their Small and Medium Enterprises.
“The training will help them to become financially literate and help them to become cautious and not extravagant with their profits.”
She also said the state government had increased the vocational centres from seven to nine so as to accommodate more youths.
Kalesanwo said that the two additional facilities sited in Badagry and Epe Local Governments would become operational in August 2021.
An assistant director in the agency, Kikelomo Olawunmi, told the trainees that appropriate book-keeping and accountability had been discovered as other solutions that could assist entrepreneurs to keep their businesses afloat.
Liason officer, Lagos State Employment Trust Fund, Ikorodu, Jubril Matti, explained that each of the trainees could get between N50, 000 and N250, 000 loans, saying they had to pay back within 15 months.
