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Lagos introduces solar power supply to schools

By Wole Oyebade
21 January 2015   |   5:10 pm
IN a bid to improve the learning environment in the state, the Lagos government has introduced solar powered panels into public schools to give students and their teachers uninterrupted power supply.   The state governor, Babatunde Fashola on Tuesday inaugurated the first of the panels installed in Model College, Meiran, promising that 172 of such…

IN a bid to improve the learning environment in the state, the Lagos government has introduced solar powered panels into public schools to give students and their teachers uninterrupted power supply.

  The state governor, Babatunde Fashola on Tuesday inaugurated the first of the panels installed in Model College, Meiran, promising that 172 of such panels would be installed in different secondary schools across the State in the first phase.

  Speaking at the school in Meiran, Agbado Oke- Odo Local Council Development Area, the governor said it was the state’s answer to the failure of steady public power supply and also part of adaptation in order to respond to current global environmental challenges on reducing carbon dioxide emissions across the world.

  He explained that renewable energy would now power the school and with very reliable maintenance, the unit would serve the College for the next 25 years.

  The governor added that the project would cover all the schools in the State and some critical health facilities.

   Fashola commended the Tutor Generals for their contributions and urged the students to continue to work hard, adding that he was proud of the progress that has been made since 2007.

   He said: “Some see it (the progress) as failure and that is the advertisement that you get but I am proud that from seven per cent we have climbed to 45 per cent pass. We got on that ladder and we will get to the top of that ladder and this investment will help us consolidate those gains and now provide reliable internet services that are already existing in your schools.”

  Continuing, Fashola said: “The reason some of you have had connectivity problem is that Federal Government failed to provide power. We have solved the power problem and therefore you would now have reliable Internet services.” 

 Fashola further said that apart from the fact that the world is moving on and the ability of Nigeria to leapfrog with technology is dependent on technology and electricity and that one can buy all of the technology in the world and connect to the internet or the hotspot, but what is uppermost is how to get electricity to power it.

  “But they, as you may have heard from our opponent in this election, claim that they would connect us to hotspots but they have not told you how to have power which is the primary responsibility that they have as a party in charge of the Federal Government.

  “We are out thinking them, out working them and we are deploying solar panels to all schools in Lagos state by strategic partnership, they complain about debts but this is what that money does. This is the investment and 172 schools in the first phase would get this. You have seen the digital library that we have created and there are tablets powered directly from the sun and stored in inverters and batteries here,” he said.

  While conducting the governor round the facility, the General Manager of Eko Electricity Project, Damilola Ogunbiyi, said the facility would give the pupils improved access to the Internet.

  Ogunbiyi added that the facility, which has been provided in conjunction with EKO Project, would serve as an outdoor resource room where all the pupils are able to have all their textbooks on a tablet and can also go online to check different things and different books.

  She explained that through the project, the EKO project has also established a partnership with Google which would allow global students have access to all the different projects as well as all the titles from primary, secondary to tertiary levels which the students can always go back to and check on their titles and the different ways things work.

 

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