Mrs Fausat Adegeye has been rewarded for holding classes on Facebook.
Despite the closure of schools across the country, Mrs Fausat, an English Studies teacher at school, Ebenezer Primary School 1, Agbado Ijaiye, launched regular online classes for students on Facebook.
She went beyond the various radio and television programmes launched by Lagos State government, to use her personal resources to engage her students.
Fausat, who began her classes 8 weeks ago on Facebook, made it a point of duty to take one class level daily for six days of the week.
Having received information about Mrs. Adegeye’s efforts, the Lagos State Universal Basic Education Board (LASUBEB) on Thursday May 14, 2020 sent her a commendation letter.
While appreciating LASUBEB for the commendation, Mrs Fausat noted that she was inspired to start the classes when she thought of what parents would be going through during the lockdown.
“School closed on the last week of March. On the Friday of that week, my kids were disturbing, and I was worried about how to teach them because they are in different classes.
“Then I thought, if I as a teacher was worried, how much more parents who are not trained to teach. I created posters and shared online about the Facebook classes. I got encouraging feedback from all the groups I shared with. So, I started teaching March 30,” she said.
She added that she downloaded the scheme of work for English Language for Primary 1-6, and started her classes teaching her children along with many of her pupils and others for free.
She stated her classes were interesting and interractive because, the students were usually given exercises to do and post answers in the comments section.
“I teach one class per day from Monday to Saturday. Primary one to three classes for about one hour 20 minutes; but other classes, like Primary six can last up to three hours because we treat past questions. It is quite interactive and they answer questions,” she said.
Mrs. Adegeye estimated that she spends about N3,500 weekly on internet access.
“Nobody is funding it. It is just I or my husband or some people who call me to appreciate my work and recharge my phone with data. Many pupils join my classes. Some private school owners even share the videos on their schools’ Facebook pages but do not bother to call to say thank you,” she disclosed.
Presenting the commendation letter to Mrs. Adegeye at the LASUBEB headquarters in Maryland, the Chairman, Mr. Wahab Alawiye-King said, “As a mark of recognition of your efforts, LASUBEB wishes to commend you for the selfless service at ensuring that pupils in primary 1 to 6 acquire English Language proficiency during the period of school closure.”
The English Studies teacher confessed to feeling inspired by the commendation and the appreciation she received from her pupils and their parents.
“Even before the recognition came, the response from people; the prayers from my pupils saying, ‘I love you’, ‘thank you’, ‘God bless you’, made me very happy.
“When SUBEB recognised me, it was the icing on the cake. They gave me a letter; people were saying there was no money but to me, money does not matter. This recognition can bring more money later,” she added.
