50,000 Adults Enroll In Lagos’ Adult Literacy Programme

The quiz competition

The Lagos State Government on Thursday disclosed that 50,000 adults enrolled into its Adult Literacy Programme in the last two years.

Special Adviser to the Governor on Education, Obafela Bank-Olemoh disclosed this at a Quiz Competition for Adult Learners, held at the Adeyemi Bero Auditorium, in Alausa, Ikeja, Lagos, Southwest Nigeria.

Bank-Olemoh disclosed that 20,000 adults enrolled into the Adult Literacy class last year while 30,000 adults enrolled for this year’s programme.

The Special Adviser, who was represented by Dr. Shamusideen Allison, Permanent Secretary, Office of Special Adviser, Education said the state government targeted to scale up its literacy rate by 95 percent by 2019.

ALSO READ: Zimbabwe Activist Arrested For Saying Mugabe Is ‘Walking-Dead’

He said currently, the state had achieved 85 percent and hoped to bridge the 13 percent shortfall by 2019.

A cross section of participants at the event

“We have a programme to promote adult literacy in Lagos State in a bid to enhance our mega city status. We have a target of 95 percent to achieve literacy rate, but presently, we have 87 percent.

“We have a shortfall of 13 percent and more people are coming to the state everyday and that makes it imperative for us to work harder to increase our achievement as far as adult literacy is concern in Lagos State,” he said.

On the quiz competition, Bank-Olemoh said the event was a yearly completion aimed at motivating all adult learners that government had the wherewithal to cater for their literacy needs.

“It is to encourage others to join the programme in a state that has a very high literacy rate. Governance today requires high level of literacy for you to be able to collaborate with government to move the state forward.

“We will keep on increasing our literacy centres and keep on engaging more facilitators, it is in our plan to train more facilitators before the end of the year, we are really doing massive campaign to ensure that more people get involve with our learning initiative. Government is investing massively in the adult education sector in order to make sure more people are able to read and write in Lagos State,” he said.