By Aliyu DANLADI
The National Parents Teachers Association of Nigeria (NAPTAN) has advised the Lagos State Government to re-energise its education monitoring team to ensure safety of children in public and private schools.
TBI Africa said Chief Adeolu Ogunbanjo, 2nd Deputy National President of the association gave the advice in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos on Monday.
Ogunbanjo was reacting to the building collapse at Ita-Faji on Lagos Island on March 13, which resulted to the death of 20 people, many of whom were school children.
He said that the team would check out schools operating illegally for sanctions or shutdown by the state government.
He said the era of endangering innocent children due to lack of proper monitoring and evaluation should be over.
“The Lagos State Building Control Agency had marked the building at Ita-Faji for demolition but the owners kept extending its demolition by buying their way out with the aid of some government officials.
“All schools must be continuously looked into to determine whether they are still habitable by students without delay.
“The incident at Ita-Faji is an unfortunate incident; to the extent that a parent lost two children and the third one is still in the hospital,’’ he said.
Ogunbanjo said regular checks should be conducted to determine the integrity and safety of such schools.
He said that any school operating within the four walls of a storey building should be subjected to checks.
“The government must deploy every means to prevent a recurrence of such incident in any part of the state,’’ Ogunbanjo said.
