YALES initiative in collaboration with Lagos State Ministry of Education has once again reiterated its t to excellence in school through its counseling conference, which is aimed at strengthening the student-counselor relationships and cultivating resilience for effective career development of in-school adolescents.
The third consecutive conference that took place at the New Era Girls Secondary School, Surulere recorded massive, positive responses from the counselors who directly have contact with the school students.
In an exclusive interview with the main face behind the initiative, Tayo Owosina, Executive director of young Africa educational support initiative (YALE) revealed that excellence in school counseling conference 3.0 hosted by the education district four is an amazing experience that is worthwhile for the target group for building together in challenging times.
The Mainland zone, Surulere zone, and Apapa zone all come together to participate in the event. This makes it the third consecutive time they are hosting it in a role supported by the Ministry of Education and of course the district.
Owosina posited after the event, “Together with the facilitators and all the experiences, issues affecting them, I think we were able to do a great job, and I can say this with the feedback given, the questions they asked, and the interventions they are seeking, I think it’s been a great experience here today.”
“For us, we know there are psychological problems in school, the outcome of Education is that you are able to make right choices as a student in life, relationships, career but we know that there are psychological problems affecting them.”
“Students are not able to perform to that optimal level and it’s affecting the outcome at the state level, national level infects the global level if we can say that.”
“We believe that with our interventions, of course, we started with schools one on one but we’ve seen that there is so much you can do going to school one on one. So collaborating, getting the buy-in of school counselors will go a long way to help us and with the feedback we have gotten from them today, touching a counselor is like touching all of them in that school and that for us is a win, win for us.”
“The counselors themselves are giving us their willingness, motivation to go back to their school and do better, do differently and do more the job they’ve been asked to do; the job of counseling in their various schools.”
Referencing the contributions of major bodies behind the success of the event, “We want to say thank you to God almighty for making today a reality for us, the third time of doing it. Also, the commissioner of education, the approval came from their table, it’s because we know that there is positivity, openness from the government even at the state level.”
“We are grateful to the Lagos State governor, the commissioner of education, and also the district. They have been so supportive of us, the school we are using, we are grateful to everyone, the technical partners, all of our partners, it’s being amazing,” she concluded.
Ojelabi, the publisher of Freelanews, is an award winning and professionally trained mass communicator and a recipient of the D9112 Superstar Icon Award, who writes ruthlessly about pop culture, religion, politics and entertainment.
