Fashola Launches Expanded School Eye Health Programme for Pubic Schools *Hands Over Imota Asphalt Plant

Public school pupils in Lagos State will now benefit from the eye test initiative of the Nigerian Optometrists Association and the Lagos State Government, as Governor Babatunde Fashola, recently launched the state's Expanded School Eye Health programme. He urged a partnership between parents and teachers to ensure that the children were able to see in order to enhance their education.

Vision Field Boards, a board on which letters of the alphabets are written in different fonts in descending order for testing visual acuity, will be fixed in Vision Field Corridors, the location or "Corridor" where the board is fixed, for the children to test their sight at their own time while in school.

Governor Fashola spoke while addressing teachers,

parents, community leaders and traditional rulers at the Olusosun Primary School in Oregun, Ikeja, venue of the event. He said the partnerships would help to detect any eye defect in the children, while also ensuring that such children get the right attention.

He enjoined teachers to share the responsibility of monitoring the children in school, to ensure they are free from any eye defect and advised parents to ensure that children eat the nutrients, which enhance their visual acuity.

The governor He added that "Experts have told us that 80 per cent of their learning is visual; so if they can't see, they are at 80 per cent deficiency and disability. This is why we are having this big event so that everybody can see. The real message is that the simple device helps to diagnose eye defects very quickly”.

He disclosed that over 100 of the boards had been installed in "a Vision Corridor" in many schools across the state and would be eventually installed in all public schools in the state.

Fashola said:"Children can get involved and do it in an interactive manner almost playfully, standing six metres away from where this board is placed. It will be their duty because there is a baseline.

"If you cannot read below the baseline, then there is a defect and this is what the children can report to their teacher so that the teacher knows that the child requires further specialized examination. This allows us to reach many children while they are, perhaps, in school."

“Government is currently training teachers and going inside the schools to see what is wrong. "This is one of the things that is wrong. This is one of the things we think that if we improve, will improve the learning environment".

He commended the Nigerian Optometrists Association for introducing the initiative, and the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education for their collaboration in driving the initiative.

"It was they (Nigerian Optometrists Association), who sent to me this e-mail while continuing in the groundbreaking and illustrious blindness prevention programme initiated by my predecessor. This e-mail set us thinking about how we could involve teachers and students in expanding the blindness prevention programme. It was that e-mail that has this board and its operational requirements that I sent to the ministry. The rest, as they say, is history. We are here today", he said.

Thanking parents, teachers and others for being a part of the event, the governor expressed hope that they would take the message away and also take the responsibilities that go with it, adding that the teachers would also make use of the Vision Corridor.

The commissioner for Health, Dr. Jide Idris, said the purpose of the board was to make it simple for children to undertake the eye tests themselves, adding that teachers have also been empowered to carry out the tests.

 He disclosed that 2002 teachers (two teachers for each of the 1001 primary schools in the state) have been trained to conduct the tests, while 185 Vision Corridors have so far been installed and 180 others are being made and installed.

Commissioner for Education, Mrs. Olayinka Oladunjoye, said the Vision Field Board was an intervention by the government to enable the people detect their eye defects at an early period, to enhance treatment, adding that the event was starting with the children as leaders of tomorrow.

Governor Fashola has handed over the Imota Asphalt Plant in Agbowa, Epe Local Government Area, assuring that his administration would continue to find solution to its developmental problems in the state, instead of talking about them.

He took an extensive tour to the Vocational and Technical College in Ikorodu to inspect the MTN Youth Skill Development Centre and inaugurated the Nigerite Projects Building, urging Lagosians to partner the government to continue to sustain its development plans for the state.

Fashola also stopped at the Resettlement Centre for Flood Victims in Agbowa, housing site for CHOIS Estate and site for the relocation of Oke-Baba Sawmillers, all in Agbowa.

Speaking at the Imota Asphalt Plant, the governor appealed to Lagosians to cooperate with his administration in its developmental efforts by giving up land where required, in the interest of the generality of the people, pointing out that government was making steady progress with its plan to develop all parts of the state.

He said the project had created many jobs for youths as scores of unemployed youths got jobs directly, while other indirect jobs, such as selling of foods and other support jobs became available.  Fashola said the plant was under construction, adding that after the construction, many residents have got engaged in the supply of raw materials for production at the plant.

"The most interesting thing about the plant is that it is most modern and sophisticated, as it reuses all asphalt scrapped from the roads".

Speaking earlier, Lagos State Public Works Corporation's Executive Chairman, Mr. Gbenga Akintola, said the plant's civil engineering works, such as preparing the foundations on which all the plant components were sitting, were carried out by in-house engineers and technicians of the corporation, adding that they also played significant roles in the installation of the plant upon its arrival from Italy.

Thanking the governor for the confidence he reposed in the corporation and the Executive Council and members of the House of Assembly for their support, the chairman expressed joy that the Imota environment had already begun to witness an upsurge of commercial activities in the form of trading and vending which, according to him, were improving by the day.

Earlier, at the Ikorodu Vocational and Technical College, while inaugurating various equipment donated by MTN, Governor Fashola expressed joy that his administration's objective to lift the image and value of technical education in the state was being realized.

"But this is a journey for us. The real story is that with this kind of partnering with the private sector, we will find answers to the problem of youth unemployment, instead of talking about and discussing it. We are changing the story of non-Nigerians taking technical jobs from Nigerians", he said.

He said his administration has gone into collaboration with the Nigerian Employers' Consultative Association to ensure that as the youths are trained, they are employed directly. "It is no longer how many youths are going to be employed after training, it is how many of the graduate youths are available for employment".

The Chairman of MTN Nigeria, Mr. Pascal Edozie, said in engaging in developmental projects in Lagos State and across the country, the company was showing gratitude for the accommodation given it and creation of an enabling environment in which it had thrived over the years.

He thanked Governor Fashola for coming to see what the company was doing in the college and prayed that God would give the students the opportunity to be major contributors to the economy of the state and the country.

Also, while welcoming him at the Nigerite Projects Building, the Executive Director of the company thanked the governor for finding time to visit. He said the project was the beginning of a long-lasting relationship between the company and the state government.

Other projects visited are the Resettlement Centre for Flood Victims at Agbowa where the governor was received and conducted round by the Commissioner for Physical Planning and Urban Development, Toyin Ayinde; the Housing site (CHOIS Estate), where the President of Co-operative Home Ownership Incentive Scheme (CHOIS), General Patrick Reis Emmanuel (rtd); conducted him round the project and the Relocation area for Oko-Baba Sawmillers, all in Agbowa.

Accompanying the governor on the tours were Chief of Staff, Mr. Lanre Babalola, the Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr. Lateef Ibirogba, Commissioner for Education, Mrs. Olayinka Oladunjoye, Commissioner for Works and Infrastructure, Dr. Obafemi Hamzat and Special Duties Commissioner, Dr. Wale Ahmed, among other Executive Council and House of Assembly members, as well as top government functionaries.