LASU begins diploma course for LG workers

The Lagos State Government in collaboration with the Lagos State University has begun a two-year diploma programme in Local Government Administration and Development Studies.

The programme is aimed at enhancing the capacity of local government workers to help them to reach the peak of their career, a statement said on Sunday.

It explained that the Lagos State Public Service Development Centre partnered LASU on the programme towards breaking career stagnation among local government workers with low academic qualifications.

The statement said with the certificate, local government workers with low academic qualification had the chances of rising to Grade Level 14 in the civil service instead of remaining on Grade Level 7 as the final bar for a clerical officer.

The statement quoted the Director-General, PSSDC, Dr Olufunmi Ajose-Harrison, as saying, “The course will equip participants with organisational and operational problem-solving skills in local government administration to enable them to evolve alternative solutions, with a view to producing practical administrators.”

Ajose-Harrison, who spoke at an orientation programme in Magodo, added that the course would align the low-cadre local government workers “with the work culture and strategic institutional objectives of the state in tandem with the greater Lagos policy direction of the present administration encapsulate in the acronym T-H-E-M-E-S.”

The Vice-Chancellor, LASU, Prof. Olanrewaju Fagbohun, urged the local government workers to take advantage of the programme, noting that it would have cost between $50,000 and $75,000 outside the country.