Lagos State Deputy Governor, Dr Obafemi Hamzat, has reiterated the need for a massive collaboration of all stakeholders to reform secondary school education in the country.

This is as he noted that efforts should be put into ensuring that graduating students are equipped with relevant skills to meet modern day needs and challenges.

Hamzat made the call during a fundraising and award ceremony organised by old students of Olivet Baptist High School, Oyo, to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the school.

The Deputy Governor, who was the guest speaker, stated that the nation’s education system is currently not evolving as the societal challenges it is meant to solve.

He further insisted that no country could ever rise beyond the quality of its educational system, even as he described secondary education as the cornerstone and training ground of leadership and the phase where a sense of responsibility is introduced and entrenched in the learners.

Meanwhile, Hamzat, an old student of the school, identified major barriers to ensure a future-focused secondary education system to include outdated curricular, infrastructure decay and collapse of established cultures, values and ethics of the olden days’ schools that set them apart as great citadels of learning and character formation.

Thus, he listed some of the values to include resilience, accountability, civic consciousness, and discipline required to lead selflessly and courageously.

To transform the system, the deputy governor said: “We need to rethink, reinvest and re-imagine secondary education.”