The Speaker of the House of Representatives,  Femi Gbajabiamila, has stressed the need for the Nigerian  nation to build a resilent education system to guarantee uninterupted learning, even in difficult times.
Gbajabiamila made the statement at the launch of “Back to School Jump Start Project”, a project organised by the office of the speaker in collaboration with the National Lottery Trust Fund in Lagos, Friday.
Represented by Rep. AdemorinKuye (APC-Shomolu), Gbajabiamila said the COVID-19 pandemic and the attendant lockdown in 2020 impacted education negatively adding that many students were shut out of school during the period as they could not access learning owing to poor digital infrastructure in schools.
Gbajabiamila said the Jump-Start Project, therefore, was aimed at digitising the teaching and learning process as well as inculcating a culture of basic hygiene in schools across the nation.
“The reason for tagging the first leg of the Jump-Start project as “No School Left Behind in Surulere” is to address the widening of the educational disadvantage heightened by the COVID-19 pandemic.While the health implications of the pandemic are all too obvious, its consequences for education are subtle, but nonetheless, devastating.
.”For students in Nigerian public schools, the lockdown in 2020 was a huge setback.Thus, the Jump Start Project is designed to mitigate the disadvantages caused by the lack of digital infrastructure in public schools, as well as ensure that there are no breaks in teaching and learning in the event of future pandemics”, he said.
The Speaker described education as the best possible investment in people, saying “It is the silver bullet that lifts people out of poverty, encourages a broader perspective that expands their worldview”.
He stated that the National Assembly was committed to building back a better and stronger education system, resistant to the eventualities of the “new normal”.
While noting that he was personally committed to improving the lives and livelihoods of his constituents through education, Gbajabiamila said the first phase of the project would see 46 junior and senior schools in Surulere 1 Federal Constituency receiving E- learning equipment such as laptops, android tablets, phones, stationery and sanitation material.