Last Thursday’s graduation of 2,000 Lagos State teachers brought to a total of 14,000 public primary school teachers that have been trained to use the state’s learning management system, the Eko Excellence in Child Education and Learning (EXCEL) – which assists teachers using standardised lesson notes programmed into tablets.

Chairman of the Lagos State Universal Basic Education Board (LASUBEB), Mr. Wahab Alawiye-King, who lowered the curtains on the training at Vetland Secondary School Agege and CMS Primary School Bariga, expressed joy that teachers in the state’s 1014 primary schools had been equipped to deliver on quality education with the aid of technology.

Alawiye-King said the EkoEXCEL had transformed basic education positively in Lagos State. He said it was a total departure from the traditional norms of teaching in the classroom introduced to make the classrooms livelier, engaging and interactive, while empowering teachers to be globally competitive.

He said: “The most important aspect of its integration and infusion of our technology in our classrooms and this is making our teachers more efficient and productive. All the syllabus are incorporated inside the tablet and we get to monitor the time on task, time of arrival and all this performance indicators to show their performance in the classrooms.

“In a nutshell, EkoEXCEL is a realistic approach to improve our basic education sector.

‘’This concludes the training for our teachers started last year but because of COVID-19 we were not able to finish. I can categorically tell you that all our teachers in the state have been captured – over 14,000 – in the Ekoexcel programme.”

Addressing the teachers, Alawiye-King urged them to be more committed to their jobs.

“We want you all to go back to your classrooms with renewed energy. The affective domain of learning must be incorporated in what we do. That is where we show our emotions, care and love to the student and this is what EkoEXCEL is all about,” he said.

Also speaking, the Permanent Secretary, Mrs. Abosede Adelaja, advised them to never back down from challenges and make effective use of the knowledge instilled in them. She urged them never to leave any child behind.

“So far I can see the passion in the teachers and they can compete comparatively with other international teachers and my expectation for the teacher is to make sure they imbibe the knowledge in the classrooms and to also make sure to love all the pupils equally as their own by helping them in their struggle and encouraging them in their academic performance,” she said.

Speaking on the relevance of the training, a teacher from Anglican Nursery and Primary School, Ayetoro Ajeromi Ifelodun, Yusuf Lukmon, said before the training he was blank in knowledge but after the training he could say proudly that he was not going back emptyhanded.

“The training programme has helped me in every possible way.  It has increased my knowledge to the improved technology advancement in education. We learnt a lot about how to handle pupils in the classrooms to help their academic performance get better.

“We were also given EkoEXCEL Tablet called AK47 to refresh the teachers’ brain and this consists of the curriculum, syllabus and interest of using hand to write down lesson note it all in the tablet,” he said.