The Lagos State Universal Basic Education Board (LASUBEB) in collaboration with Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) is raising awareness for the smooth implementation of cluster school model (CSM) meetings in schools.

Wahab Alawiye-King, Executive Chairman, LASUBEB, at an awareness meeting with policy makers in the education sector in Lagos, said that in pursuit of effective teaching, lesson delivery and improved management in basic education institutions, cluster school model needs to be implemented in all Lagos State owned schools.

“Cluster model or clustering is the task of grouping a set of objects in such a way that objects in the same group are more similar to each other than to those in other groups.

“ At the inception of Teacher Professional Development Plan in Nigeria, the Cascade model of teacher training was employed.

“The cascade model is one model that is used to train a large number of in-service teachers in a short span of time.

“The success or failure of this model depends upon the way it is implemented,’’ he said.

Mr. Alawiye-King said that cluster model would help the education sector to move from analog to digital method of teaching and learning.

“Lagos state government and LASUBEB will need support and cooperation of concerned stakeholders within the school community for enabling environment devoid of interference each cluster,’’ he said.

Mr Dayo Israel, Permanent Board Member of LASUBEB, said that UBEC introduced the cluster school model to improve quality assurance of schools in Lagos.

Mr. Israel said that the former model, called cascade, did not really have effect because as it got to lower levels, it was diluted.

“Cluster models will cluster people in cells or units in a different school to a particular area together which involves pair mentoring, training and so on.

“Cluster school model will improve the quality of teachers and learning experience of students in the classroom,” he said.

Dr Felix Akinnusi, Desk Officer, Teacher Development Plan(TDP), LASUBEB, said advocacy and sensitisation are the third stage or phrase of the cluster school model.

“Currently, there are 30 clusters in Lagos under the cluster school model. It includes 40 teachers,10 head teachers, two facilitators, two LGEA supervisors and one SUBEB staff,” he said.

Mr. Akinnusi said that UBEC cluster school model (CSM) had 10 stages including development of action plan, selection of participants, needs assessment, advocacy and sensitisation.

“Others include sit-in-observation, needs based interactive session, cluster teacher meeting, classroom intervention and impact assessment,” he said.