Lagos lawmaker plans summer coaching for students
Mr Adebola Shabi, a member of the Lagos State House of Assembly (LAHA), says he will organise summer coaching for students in public senior secondary schools in Lagos State during the forthcoming long vacation.
Shabi, representing Lagos Mainland Constituency 2, made the call in an interview with the newshouse on the sideline of the maiden edition of Crime Prevention Summit for Secondary School Students in Lagos Mainland.
The one-day programme organised by Mainland Youth Initiative in conjunction with the Lagos State Education District IV was held on Tuesday at Alagomeji, Yaba.
Shabi, an engineer , who expressed sadness over the inability of a student at the programme to answer a simple question on multiplication, said such coaching classes would be important to keep them academically busy.
“For instance, I was asking them 9×8, 6×9; the Senior Secondary (SS) , SS2 students didn’t know. I mean, it’s appalling. Has it gone so bad? We have to do something fast to rescue the situation.
“We have to engage these students and that is exactly what I want to do in this year’s summer holidays.
“ I will organise coaching for SS 2 and SS 3 students, especially in English and Mathematics because they are poor in the two subjects. That is my assessment on them.
“The summer coaching will engage them for hours and they will not have time for unnecessary activities that will not be of value to their academic life or career development,” he explained.
According to him, the idea is to boost the students’ skills and academic knowledge.
“I will personally engage and pay the teachers that will teach them during the period,” he assured newsmen.
The lawmaker urged that teachers be trained and retrained.
“They must be given training regularly. There must be regular assessment of their lesson notes and we must go back to the old kind of discipline to bring up these students, else the education system will collapse,” he said.
The lawmaker emphasised that teachers must spend quality time with students and that students must also be disciplined.
“Teachers must sit up in the handling of these students by counseling, meting out punishment and even flogging them where necessary as part of corrections,” he said.
