As part of plans to commemorate Children’s Day on the 27th of May, Lagos State government has initiated plans to launch ‘Virtual Read Aloud’ Lagos for students in all its 20,000 public primary and secondary schools in the state.

Speaking at a Virtual Press briefing held in Lagos today, the Director General, Quality Assurance, Ministry of Education, Mrs. Abiola Seriki-Ayeni, said this will be made possible via radio, television, social media and the ministry’s website, and will targeted at students of 18 years and below.

According to Mrs. Seriki- Ayeni, “Read Aloud’ Lagos Children’s Day celebration, Commissioner for Education and her team Child Protection experts, authors of repute, motivational speakers, will be present to ‘Read Aloud’ for the students via virtual and the contents will be applicable for different ages.

“It will be interactive because there will be competition that would trend on the social media for students who are good at writing, reading, drawing or acting.

It is an avenue for them to showcase their talents. After Children’s Day, we will officially begin “Read Aloud Lagos, June 1st” she said.

Speaking further, she said, “The aim is to ensure that children have models and the peers reading aloud, having in mind that good leaders are ardent readers.

We want to prepare our students by equipping them with the critical skills needed to not just read for academics but read for life, thereby becoming a lifelong-learner,” she said.

The programme, she said was initiated even before COVID-19 Pandemic. “The programme is 2-phased: virtual and the school aspect.

We are providing books for the students and there will be baseline assessment through our monitoring team, bearing in mind that post Covid-19, education will never remain the same.”