Lagos State Government has inaugurated its Secondary School Eye Health Programme in continuation of its effort to reduce visual impairment and eye conditions that could cause blindness amongst students, particularly pupils of Secondary Schools across the state.
This was contained in a statement posted on the government Facebook Page on Tuesday titled, ‘Lagos moves to reduce visual impairment amongst secondary school pupils.
Speaking at the inauguration of the programme at Oregun Junior High School, Ikeja, the state’s Commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi, noted that the secondary school eye health programme is one of the strategies of the government to reduce the burden of childhood blindness across the state.
He explained that the programme has four main components, namely: Training of teachers on vision screening in all state secondary schools starting with the junior secondary schools.
Others are installation of vision screening boards in all the secondary schools; Equipping of all secondary schools with vision screening kits, and the management and referral of students with eye conditions by the Blindness Preventive Team.
He said, “Vision impairment affects people of all ages and children are not left out. The leading causes of vision impairment and blindness are uncorrected refractive errors and cataracts.
“Visual impairment from uncorrected refractive error has immediate and long-term consequences. It can hamper performance, reduce productivity and generally impair quality of life.”
Abayomi enjoined teachers to also use the opportunity offered by the secondary eye health programme to examine their eyes, stressing that the programme is for students, teachers and school staff.
The commissioner, who also noted that that WAEC performance of schools in Lagos has increased from 39 to 80 per cent, attributed the excellent performance to the hard work and dedication of teachers, adding that the feat is a testimonial of the successes of various education policies being implemented in the State.
“I can also assure you that this secondary school eye health programme will further enhance the performance of our students,” Abayomi asserted.
The high point of the event was the presentation of eyeglasses to students, vision screening kits to trained secondary schools teachers and unveiling of the vision corridor at the Oregun Junior High school.
PUNCH
