Mr. Hakeem Smith is the chairman of the Special Committee on Rehabilitation of Public Schools, SCRPS, in Lagos State. In this interview by SAKIBU OLOKOJOBI, he speaks on how his committee has changed the face of schooling in Lagos State through the provision of infrastructure and other essentials to bring about a conducive environment for improved level of education. He speaks about the challenges faced by his committee and how it has surmounted them, among other issues. The chairman also applauds the old students of Lagos Baptist Secondary School, LABASCO, Orile Agege, Lagos, in the Diaspora, on the N7.5 million assembly ground interlocking project, stressing that their accomplishment was an inspiration to the young ones still in school. Excerpts:
Old students of Lagos Baptist Secondary School, Orile Agege, in the Diaspora, have just completed a project of interlocking the Assembly ground of the school to the tune of over N7.5 million. What is your impression about this?
Thank you very much. I feel happy and elated about it. I think this time around we all need to take responsibilities, contribute and support the government in terms of improving the infrastructure of schools generally and all assets of the country. The budget of the country or state most times cannot totally or fully help to improve these infrastructure, so I think support from individuals and organisations, in the case of schools now, old student associations, is most importantly appreciated. There is the need to support the government because the task is a bit enormous and daunting and any little support from anybody is most appreciated. I would say thank you and kudos to them.
How would you say a project like this has added to your efforts in rehabilitating schools and changing the face education in the state?
While appreciating them, it’s also good to mention that we also had other schools that have done similar things in smaller and even bigger capacities. Like I mentioned, every little support is needed. This will encourage the governments, people, students and the users. If old students are coming back to support their schools, it will go a long way to assist and to even help the morale of the current students. It makes them feel that if our old students can come to do this, surely sometime, we would be in the position to do the same. I think it’s a way of giving back to the society and also encouraging the students presently to see that there is a future and that they can also become something. It makes them also realize that giving back to school makes a lot of sense and it’s good for the country and the state.
Coming back to give to the school is also an opportunity for the old students to even talk to them and tell them that, look, you can be better than us and it’s something I think motivates. So, I implore other old students associations to see what they can do for their schools. It could be in different forms, like adopting a classroom, fixing of ceiling fans, fixing some furniture, and so on. Government is doing a lot, I must tell you, but support by old students is very good and complementary.
Do you encourage old students in the state to give back to their alma mater in any way?
Certainly, I have had instances. A particular one I remember vividly was when Government College, Eric-Moore in Surulere met with Mr. Governor to present some of the things they were doing and they seized the opportunity to invite the governor to their 50th anniversary. Mr. Governor appreciated them. He met with them. Meeting Mr. Governor is something any alumni would be happy to achieve. The governor will always appreciate any of such support and will be willing to recognize them, align with them and appreciate them. So, I think for me, it’s an encouragement, they should go ahead and do it but bring it to the fore so that it can be recognized and appreciated. It’s important because some people will do some things and you won’t even know when it is done; but if it can be brought to the fore, Mr. Governor will be willing to meet and align with them.
As a government committee saddled with the task of rehabilitating schools in the state, how many projects have you carried out?
I can say that we have done quite a number of projects. We deal with construction of new schools, rehabilitation of secondary and primary schools. We also provide furniture for schools. In all of these, I think in the last four to five years we must have delivered an additional 1,926 classrooms added to the stock of classroom we have in Lagos. In the area of rehabilitation, we have attended to about 184 public primary schools and about 186 public secondary schools in Lagos State. Although we can say this is quite a number, we are still scratching the ground, we are not there yet. We hope to do more because there are many schools that need attention. We are also building hostels for schools. We have been able to deliver about 1,592 beds hostels in all the six education districts in Lagos State. There are various model colleges with hostel blocks. Also, we’ve been able to fabricate and supply furniture in excess of 200,000 to schools. We have also done some interesting projects like the IT-driven schools in Vetland Secondary School, Agege, which has interactive screens in all the classrooms. It is the modern way of learning internationally. That has been done at Vetland and we are also replicating similar project in other districts such as Ogba Grammar School; Lagos Baptist Secondary School, Obanikoro; Girls Senior College, Lalupon, in Ikoyi. They will be delivered and inaugurated in the next six months so that the pupils and the students can make use of them. Those are schools that students use their tablets and laptops and the interactive screens in the classrooms for learning.
If Mr. Governor has gone all out to support this committee to be able to deliver these infrastructure to these public schools in the midst of other challenges, it is important that they should take responsibility and ownership of the facilities because they are the owners. They should ensure they are properly used and maintained, so that the initiator (Mr. Governor) will be happy and willing to do more.
Which of the projects would you say has attracted the greatest commendation from the public?
I would say it is the interactive IT-driven school at Vetland Junior Grammar School, Agege. It’s first of its kind in West Africa. None of that has existed before in Lagos. It is the international modern way of learning. We used to use the black board and chalk, white board and ink, but now we have the interactive screens. The students use their laptops or ipads; also, with your phones you can actually work. Teacher will love to instruct, using the interactive screens. Look at what happened during the COVID 19 era whereby we couldn’t go to school physically, but with this kind of technology, teaching was possible online. Students could learn from the comfort of their homes. I need to add too that recently we added what we call recreation to it. As they read, they need to be involved in arts and recreational activities. Hence, in some schools that have land, we have been introducing and building recreational facilities like football pitch, race tracks, multi-purpose courts, so that they can exert their energy. You know kids have so much energy, so, by the time they finish academic work, they can do some sports. It could be football, basketball, badminton and so on. In order to be able to do all these, we are putting the facilities in place for them.
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How impactful would you say the activities of your committee have been and in what ways?
Well, the impact is quite enormous. You need to go to some of these schools where we have some of these facilities, and hear testimonies from the school teachers and the students. They are happy. The importance of having good infrastructure is to support academic work of the school. We’ve seen that the results have actually been tremendous in improving the educational standard. When Mr. Governor came in about four to five years ago, we knew what the WAEC result was, and now it has gone up by about 70 per cent. That is the essence. If you put infrastructure in place and there is no positive impact, then, there must have been a problem somehow. With the infrastructure in place, leaning environment has improved. As a result, teachers are happy and students are happy to come to school. They are well seated in their classrooms. They are happy when they come into the environment which are well lit. The fans are working perfectly. There is cross ventilation in the classrooms. There are adequate toilets. They have water facilities. Most of the schools we build now have adequate toilet facilities in the blocks; they have water; student are happy to come to school and even from the information that we gather from statistics, there is an increase in the number of intake in some of these public schools. Pupils are leaving the private schools back to the public schools. The population of Lagos is quite huge and we are trying to take in as much as possible. The impact is quite great.
Which schools are you considering for rehabilitation in the next few year and what are their challenges?
Well, there are so many schools that we are working on. In the area of rehabilitation, we have about 1700 public schools in Lagos State. The primary schools are about 1000 while the secondary schools are 700; that is talking about the junior and senior arms. So, basically, if you look at the things we’ve done now, we have rehabilitated about 370 public schools among the existing schools and we are adding new classroom blocks to the stocks we already have. However, in the last three years, we have been able to build new schools. Lest I forgot, we have a school like Elemoro Community Junior Secondary School in Ibeju-lekki that was built under this administration. There was no public school in that community before. We built that one. We are currently going to open another one at Ajegunle which is also a new school. We have done Oke-Odo Junior High School in Ebute Metta, it’s a new school. Edwin Otumara in Ido is a new school, that’s a senior secondary school. So, we have been able to add about five new schools within the education districts. These are things we feel are necessary and we keep doing them as we are getting land that are donated from the public and the government, in supporting the committee to ensure that we build more schools. This is because the population keeps increasing, and we have to just keep adding to the stocks of schools for the people of Lagos State.
How well funded or otherwise has your committee been?
Well, we are lucky greatly to an extent because Mr. Governor is supporting this committee. This is a committee he inaugurated. It had existed before but was dissolved. He brought it back for the purpose he believed in. It’s one thing to believe in something, it’s another thing to support it. We have seen tremendous support from Mr. Governor. The normal challenges are of weather, construction period, construction methodology of course, which we expect, because we are sticklers to standards. We ensure we do our soil tests and soil investigation so that our buildings are footed rightly. Of course, we normally have some back and forth with some contractors to ensure we achieve good standards required. Because we are working in a secured environment, we hardly have issues.
We also have other issues such as encroachments which government is dealing with. This involves people encroaching on the school premises, and we are on top of such situations. So, there are no major challenges, rather than the basic construction challenges which naturally come with the work that we are doing. Fortunately, we are technically skilled; we have technical support from the ministries and our ad-hoc staff. The board of SCRPS is well constituted. We have professionals on the board, so, we are able to meet up with those challenges. For me, they are normal challenges and we are able to surmount them. Our ability to surmount our challenges have made us to do more.
Are there strategies put in place to avoid your work from being disrupted by challenges?
In the area of weather, there is nothing we can do about it. What we have put in place is good project management and planning. We are mindful of the raining season. When the rain subsides, we start our project, and by the time the rain is about to start, we would have already done the carcass and would be working internally. And also on renovation works, there are ways we do it such that it cannot be stopped. Another, challenge is when we want to renovate a school where we have students on ground, at such school, what we do is to have an understanding with the school principals or the head teachers to manage the students because we have to be very careful to ensure that we don’t have any accident or injury on site. We keep the students at arms-length as work is going on or create a temporary shed or classrooms for them while the construction on the new building is going on.
In all, we have been able to surmount all these with the understanding and co-operation of the users because they believe that what we are doing is for their benefit. We enjoy tremendous support from all of them and even from the districts. From the executive secretaries, the tutor-generals and permanent secretaries, principals and head teachers, we work harmoniously and we’ve been able to deliver value. So, for me, it’s mainly the weather. And at times, because of the enormity of the work to do, the budget can be an issue. I believe with more funding we can do more.
How well would you say you have fared as a committee in the discharge of your duties?
I cannot score our committee, being the head. I believe that posterity and the public are there to judge us. If you see the couple of testimonies… How I wish we can publish how people have appreciated what we have been able to do. They are all in the public domain. In some of the schools that we have worked, they will tell you what we’ve done for them and the way we are appreciated. We give them audience and try to address all their issues and problems. I think I cannot score our committee. That question will be left to the public to answer. If you start from zero to 1,700 as at today, we have done about half of it. If you add 2000 classrooms to what we have in the state, that’s an achievement. It’s just that if we have the opportunity we can do more.
Notwithstanding your sense of modesty, you should be able to give an opinion.
I think we’ve done fairly well without flattering ourselves. Another thing I will score us on particularly is the fact that the performance rate of our projects has been very very high. We are in the 90 per cent grade. I can tell you to-date, in terms of abandonment, we don’t have any. The only project that gave us a challenge was the one that we’ve already terminated. We are always on top of issues regarding our contractors. We manage them so well that we make sure they deliver value for the state. With respect to furniture, we have had one or two issues too with some contractors, but at least we’ve been able to manage them. So, in all, with the amount of achievements I think we have tried fairly and the public is there to score us. If you ask me, we have AA plus.
Any short message to beneficiaries of the projects by your committee?
Thank you so much. This is a very important one. First and foremost, I like to thank Mr. Governor for the tremendous support to this committee and because of that support I will always want to advise the principals and the user to, at least, ensure they take responsibility and ownership of these facilities. If Mr. Governor has gone all out to support this committee to be able to deliver these infrastructure to these public schools in the midst of other challenges, it is important that they should take responsibility and ownership of the facilities because they are the owners. They should ensure they are properly used and maintained, so that the initiator (Mr. Governor) will be happy and willing to do more. And the final impact is the result we are getting and they should keep it up so that Mr. Governor will be happy.
