Lagos State Governor, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu, on Tuesday, inaugurated a newly built 18-classroom school — Elemoro Community Junior Secondary School, Ibeju-Lekki.
At the inauguration, Sanwo-Olu said that the 18-classroom school is a state-of-the-art facility with 12 standard classrooms, six special rooms for Home Economics, Technology, Art/Music studio, science laboratory, Library and Information, and Communication Technology (ICT) room.
He said that it also had teachers’ offices, sickbay, standard canteen block, and over 30 toilet facilities.
According to him, the brand new school also comes with sports facilities including a 40 by 25 meters football pitch, a six-lane sandwich Athletics Running Track and a spacious seating arena.
”Over two and half years ago, we expressed our commitment to the education sector and our desire to ensure that every child in Lagos has unrestricted access to qualitative education.
”This is a fulfillment of my promise to provide the Okeodo Elemoro Iwerekun community with a secondary school.
”I am greatly pleased today because, with the commissioning of this school, many children in this locality will now have access to secondary education.
”They will also have the platform through which they can fulfill their dreams and ambitions for the future, without having to travel kilometers to another community for secondary education.
”We are already making plans and looking at constructing the Elemoro Community Senior Secondary School within this compound as well, to ensure continuity in senior secondary education in this community,” he said.
Sanwo-Olu thanked His Royal Majesty, Oba Tajudeen Elemoro, who made the construction of the school possible, by graciously providing the 1.54 hectares of land, on which the school facility was built.
He said that his administration’s approach to constructing new schools, rehabilitating and revamping existing ones was all-encompassing, hence, was also taking the issue of security in schools very seriously.
The governor said that in the past couple of weeks, the state had experienced a series of incidents in the education sector that had been quite unfortunate and saddening.
According to him, while these incidents have put all in a gloomy state, it is an indication that all need to do more to protect the children and young generation.
”I assure you this afternoon that we will pursue justice and also intensify our efforts at ensuring the physical and moral sanctity of our children,” he said.
In her welcome address, the Commissioner of Education, Mrs. Folasade Adefisayo said that the importance of infrastructure to quality education and for a child to realize his or her full potential could not be over-emphasized.
Adefisayo said that the Elemoro school was built from the scratch, with the generous release of land by the community.
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She said that the combination of facilities was the first of its kind in the state and to encourage sporting activities, thus making teaching and learning very interesting for students.
In his goodwill message, the Managing Director, Federal Housing Authority, Sen. Gbenga Ashafa, said that people of the community would forever be grateful to the governor for taking education to the next level with state-of-the-art facilities.
Ashafa, who had represented Lagos East Senatorial District in the Senate, said that with the facility, the students would be able to combine learning with sporting activities.
He urged the stakeholders in the community to take ownership of the facility, by ensuring proper maintenance.
The FHA MD said that the best way to encourage the government to establish such projects in the axis was through proper maintenance. (NAN)
