Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu on Monday unveiled 5,000 transistor radios, 5,000 face-masks and cash donation to improve access to educational contents by pupils and students in the state in response to the challenges thrown up by COVID-19 pandemic.
The transistor radios and face-masks, which were donated by the Committee of Wives of Lagos State Officials (COWLSO), in partnership with the Office of Lagos State First Lady, to the Ministry of Education, would be distributed across the state, especially in the hard-to-reach areas, including riverine areas.
Sanwo-Olu, speaking at the event held at State House, Marina, commended COWLSO for the laudable initiative to play up the education of children in the state, expressing optimism that it would enhance access to educational contents on radio.
He said the donation by COWLSO would greatly help students to be abreast of all the things happening as far as their education was concerned since schools are physically not operating for now.
On her part, the First Lady and COWLSO Chairman, Dr. Ibijoke Sanwo-Olu, said the initiative to donate the transistor radios was borne out of the desire to ensure that no child is left behind in access to quality education in the state, while the 5,000 face-masks and the cash donation would help to ease the burden of parents and guardians and the students.
She, therefore, urged corporate organisations, religious bodies, human rights activists, among others, to come to the plight of the children by joining hands with government to play up education with the view to engendering a better future for students in the state.
Earlier, Commissioner for Education, Mrs. Folasade Adefisayo, who commended the First Lady and COWLSO members for the donations, said that the ministry was working on establishing a radio station that would be solely dedicated to education to expand time for airing of educational contents and improve access for students.
In another development, the management of Redeemer’s University has frowned at the news of an outbreak of COVID-19 on its campus as reported by some media houses recently.
It said that the report had the potential of undermining its efforts at safeguarding the health of the nation through free medical services being provided by the Redeemer’s University African Centre of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases.
A statement signed by the university’s Corporate Affairs Head, Mr. Adetunji Adeleye, said the school, as part of its routine check, discovered through its clinical testing that one of its clients living outside campus had been exposed to the pandemic and immediately activated all mechanisms to safeguard its spread and subjected all those people who might have had any contact with him directly or indirectly to necessary testing to ensure the safety of our environment.