No gains for Almajiri schools’ graduates – Fashola

Lagos State Governor, Babatunde Fashola

Lagos State Governor, Babatunde Fashola, says the Almajiri schools being established by the Peoples Democratic Party-led Federal Government in the northern part of the country have no feasible end gains.

Fashola said this at an event on Thursday ─ Support Our Schools Breakfast Meeting with the Governor─ held at the City Hall on the Lagos Island.

The governor explained that the purpose of training someone was for the person to be able to use the knowledge gained and the skills acquired to his benefit and the good of society.

He said that could not be said of the Almajiri schools as they had no competitive advantage for the graduates.

He said, “If you train people to acquire certain skills, you must develop avenue where the skills will be useful and that will be the end gain. For instance, graduates of our technical and vocational colleges will become our major contractors.

“And so, it worries me, what is the end gain of products of the Almajiri schools? Will you put your child there? Will a company looking through its job appraisal consider such graduates from Almajiri schools? What chance will the product of the Almajiri schools have working for multinational companies? Are we giving the children a chance when we segregate them into Almajiri schools? Think about it.”

Fashola said as part of measures to encourage vocational and technical education in the state, his administration had issued over 600 contracts as annual maintenance projects of Lagos schools, adding that graduates of the state’s technical schools were the main beneficiaries.

“We have issued maintenance contract to all our schools. We have issued about 600 contracts of annual maintenance of our schools and they ranged between N2m to N4m per annum. Our graduates in the technical and vocational colleges are the substantial beneficiaries of the contracts. We now want to ensure that every school in Lagos has regular and uninterrupted power supply,” he added.

Earlier, the Commissioner for Education, Olayinka Oladunjoye had expressed government’s gratitude to organisations that embraced the ‘Support our school’ initiative, saying the support had contributed to the success of the Fashola’s administration in the educational sector.