Principal advises students on workplace skills

The principal, Lagos Preparatory and Secondary School, Ikoyi, Mr Gregor Polson, has stressed the need for schools to have foresight, understand the skills and qualifications students will need in a competitive workforce.

Polson, in a statement by the school’s public relations and marketing manager, Lois Isemede, on Thursday, said the coronavirus pandemic had necessitated the need to teach students skills that would be useful for them beyond the classroom.

He said, “How do we prepare students for today’s society? This is particularly relevant in our current situation when most students have been forced into distance learning due to the outbreak of COVID-19.

“Normally, when we consider the next step for students leaving school, we think of university as a large number of them will end up going to these higher education institutes, gain a degree and then go into a related profession.

“Other students will either take some technical or vocational qualifications or even enter the workforce directly. The problem with these assumptions is that school graduates are making different choices to their parents in terms of career, as many of their possible career paths did not exist when their parents entered the workforce.”